


Snap Decisions

by heyjupiter



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Teachers, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Gen, M/M, Minor Carol Danvers/James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Minor Jane Foster/Thor, Minor Pepper Potts/Natasha Romanov, POV Alternating, Science Bros, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-03-20 07:33:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 52,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18988126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyjupiter/pseuds/heyjupiter
Summary: High school physics teacher Bruce Banner is feeling adrift after he returns from two years in the Peace Corps and takes a new job as the coach of Infinite Horizons Academy's academic decathlon team. Their rival team, Midtown School of Science and Technology, also acquires a new coach when stressed-out CEO Tony Stark finds himself in need of some community service hours. Despite their schools' rivalry, the two coaches become friendly with one another.When New York's power-hungry Schools Chancellor Thanos abruptly closes half of the city's public schools, the two teams are forced to merge. As things begin to crumble around them, Bruce and Tony get a little help from their students in their struggle to save their schools--and each other.





	1. Soy Un Perdedor

**Author's Note:**

> **Content note** : this contains references to canon-similar past child abuse/domestic violence and its lingering effects, though nothing graphic.
> 
> This is for the "no powers" square on [my Science Bros bingo card](https://twentyghosts.tumblr.com/sciencebrosbingo).
> 
> Thanks to tarajuku, volunteerfd, and xxx-cat-xxx for lending me their eyes and various fields of expertise! This would be a much poorer story without their input and I truly appreciate all the time they spent helping me with this!
> 
> This is complete and I'll be posting updates regularly.
> 
> And now, here is a deeply nerdy author's note regarding academic decathlon that you may feel 100% free to disregard unless you, too, are a nerd.
> 
>  
> 
> ...OK, hello fellow nerd. So the thing is, in Spider-Man: Homecoming, everyone calls the activity that Peter and his friends do "academic decathlon." And indeed, the activity that they appear to be partaking in 100% of the time is something like Super Quiz, which is an event that makes up 1/10th of academic decathlon. [Academic decathlon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Academic_Decathlon) consists of _ten_ events, hence _dec_ athlon. Do I blame the movie for skipping the other nine events? No, especially since a lot of them are written events that would not make for very visually engaging movie scenes. 
> 
> However, the thing is, there's another nerdy high school activity that is essentially _only_ the Super Quiz part of academic decathlon, and that event is [scholastic bowl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiz_bowl)! (AKA "quiz bowl" in some places.) Why didn't they just have Peter be on a scholastic bowl team?! Were they paid off by Big Academic Decathlon? I just don't know, and that's my nerdiest problem with the entire MCU. (Also PS: Super Quiz in academic decathlon is multiple choice, and scholastic bowl is open-ended questions. Those nerds are doing scholastic bowl! Source: me, a nerd who did four years of high school scholastic bowl!)
> 
> Following the weird precedent set by Homecoming, I've written all their practices and events following the rules of scholastic bowl but I've continued to call it "academic decathlon." (And I've kept the blazers, which are cute.)
> 
> Also, in Homecoming, their coach Martin Starr (okay apparently his name was Coach Harrington) seemed to be intentionally bad (having previously lost students on field trips!) and let most of the work of running the team fall to Liz and later MJ...which again, I understand, it's a teen movie and you want the teen characters to have most of the interesting stuff to do. But since my fic is focused more on the adult characters, the adult coaches are going to be doing a little bit more of the heavy lifting around here, since that's their _job_ and all.
> 
> (All that said, I'm still fudging some stuff here and there because after all it is AU fanfiction and we're all just here to have a good time!)

Bruce had taken his last class of the day outside; partly because they were measuring the velocity of dropped tennis balls and there was much less of a chance that his students would accidentally hit a piece of fragile equipment outside, and partly because sometimes being stuck in a classroom all day made Bruce feel just as antsy as the kids.

When he returned to his classroom, awkwardly lugging a tub of tennis balls and meter sticks, Bruce wasn't surprised to see that Shuri had beat him to academic decathlon afterschool practice and already set up the practice buzzer system. He _was_ surprised to see her sitting at a desk with a perfectly neutral facial expression, rather than looking like the embodiment of a ray of sunshine.

"Hey, Shuri, is everything alright?" he asked as he put away his lab equipment.

"Oh...yes, fine, I just found out that I didn't get the fall break externship I wanted."

"What? That's ridiculous. Any place would be lucky to have you," he said, and meant it. As a teacher he believed strongly in not playing favorites, but...none of the other kids were there yet, and Shuri was definitely his favorite.

She gave a half smile. "Thank you. And thank you again for your letters of recommendation, Dr. Banner."

"Of course, no problem." Bruce worked on setting up his laptop at his desk and then said, "Remind me, which was your top choice externship?"

"Well...it wasn't one of the ones the school arranged for, but I really wanted to work at Coachella."

"Coachella the music festival?" 

"Yes, I know it doesn't seem relevant to my area of study, but I have some innovative ideas about how to make stage lighting more energy efficient."

"Oh," Bruce said.

"Also, I really wanted to meet Beyonce," Shuri said.

"Well, sure, who doesn't?" Bruce debating pointing out the fact that Shuri's brother, the Prince of Wakanda, could probably arrange a meeting with Queen Bey. Shuri didn't like to feel that she got preferential treatment at Infinite Horizons Academy just because she was _technically_ royalty. Bruce always enjoyed the momentary reminders that, at heart, Shuri was a fun-loving teenage girl and not _just_ an amazing supergenius and princess of a high-tech nation.

He decided against mentioning her royal lineage and just asked, "So what externship did you end up getting?" The externships were part of the charter school's curriculum, so every senior was guaranteed to get one. It was just that some students ended up getting externships at...less desirable organizations.

"NASA," Shuri said. "It was my second choice."

"Wow, that's really terrible. You're going to be so bored," Bruce said drily.

"I'm sure I'll manage," Shuri said, managing a slight smile in response to his joke.

"You can try Coachella again for your spring externship. I'm sure by then they'll regret their rash decision."

Bruce looked up as two more students entered the classroom. Shuri's friend Bucky Barnes silently slid into the seat next to her and nodded at her. Darcy Lewis came in behind him and dramatically threw her backpack on the ground and herself into a seat as she said, "Dr. B, I can't believe you even know what Coachella is."

"What if I told you...I went to Coachella once?" Bruce asked, his tone conspiratorial.

"Bullshit," Darcy said immediately.

"Yeah, you're right, until Shuri explained it I thought it was a kind of bacteria," Bruce replied, counting on Darcy to pick up his sarcasm. It was true, though, that he'd never been--just the thought of being in a crowd with that many people made him feel anxious. He _had_ occasionally been known to watch the livestream, though he didn't think his love for Arcade Fire's performances was going to win him any points with Darcy either.

"I knew it," Darcy said. "You probably only listen to like, dad rock. Or those recordings of nature sounds."

"Oh yeah, I love that album of songbirds covering Journey songs, Don't Stop Be-Tweeting," Bruce retorted, and was validated when Darcy snorted. Bruce was used to his students thinking he was a dork, but at least he could have fun with it.

"What'd you get us for a snack today?" Darcy asked. " _Please_ say Pop-Tarts."

"If by Pop-Tarts, you mean baby carrots…" Bruce said, pulling tiny bags of baby carrots out of the room's mini-fridge. This was his first year teaching at the prestigious charter school and he still couldn't get used to things like the extracurricular budget they'd given him. At the public schools he'd worked at before, he'd usually kept a stash of snacks at his desk to slip to his hungry students, but those had come out of his own pocket. 

Darcy gave the carrots a death stare, and Bruce relented. "Okay, I got some Oreos, too."

"Yessss," Darcy said.

"But they're aspirational Oreos. I'll hand them out once you hit five correct answers."

"Booo! Dr. B, at that rate I'm not going to get any Oreos until next week!" Darcy protested. 

"Sure you will! So don't fill up on carrots." 

The rest of the team had filtered into the room while Bruce and Darcy squabbled. Most of them took the carrots without complaint and sat down at a buzzer. 

Infinite Horizons had a really strong team. Gamora and Nebula: fraternal twins who looked nothing alike. Nebula's wheelchair was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to their physical differences--Nebula always dressed as punk as the school's dress code allowed, while Gamora had more of a flawless Mean Girls vibe. But intellectually, they were both cut-throat competitors, all-around strong players who seemed to spend a lot of their spare time memorizing lists. Then there were Stephen, a snarky theater kid who was constantly getting dress code violations for wearing his cape to school, but brought a strong knowledge of world literature and drama; and Wong, who kept a close eye on current events and simultaneously seemed to be Stephen's best friend and also extremely tired of Stephen's drama. 

The team had three seniors: Bucky: a teen who was recovering from a car accident a few years ago. He spoke little aside from answering questions, but his prosthetic hand was lightning fast on the buzzer and he knew a lot about history; Darcy, who was mostly there to pad out her college applications and whose real strength was knowing pop culture questions, though she sometimes surprised them all with random facts; and finally, team captain Shuri, who'd skipped several grades to be the youngest senior there, who particularly shone at math and science but also seemed to know just about everything.

Shuri was so good that it actually caused a lot of extra work for Bruce. When he'd coached academic decathlon at other schools, at practices they would generally just go through standard pre-written sets of practice questions. Now, he spent a lot of his prep periods piecing together custom sets of practice questions as he attempted to scrape together anything he thought Shuri might _not_ know, just to keep the other kids from getting too depressed.

"Okay, so, before we get started, just a reminder that we have our first match after school this Friday. It's just a friendly warm-up match before we get really into tournament season. It'll be at Midtown School of Science and Technology at 4pm. Make sure to bring your uniform blazers, and--"

"Please don't say a positive attitude," Darcy interrupted.

"I think your regular attitude will be fine," Shuri said.

Bruce said, "Honestly, give me a little credit. I was going to say _signed permission slips_. You can have whatever kind of attitude you want as long as your parent or guardian knows where you are. Any questions?"

"Can I wear my cloak over my blazer?" Stephen asked.

"Um, not at official tournaments, but since this is supposed to be a friendly practice match, I don't see why not. As long as the other team's coach doesn't mind."

"Coach Harrington doesn't give a f-freak," Wong said, carefully self-censoring.

"Oh yeah, I remember him, that guy's pretty checked out," Darcy agreed. "I heard he got fired, though."

"I don't know about that... let's just wait and let him speak for himself," Bruce said. He didn't think he'd met the coach in question during his previous years in academic decathlon. "So just, everyone make sure you have your blazers. We'll meet here right after last period and head over there together."

Darcy raised her hand. "Can't we just meet there? That's what we usually do for matches in the city."

"Yeah, we're not in kindergarten," Nebula said. "We can take the subway by ourselves."

"Uh, well...is that what everyone wants to do?" Bruce scanned the room and saw nods, but didn't want to leave anyone out. "You know what, let's just say that as long as you have your permission slip turned in in advance, you can meet us there at 3:45. But if anyone would rather head over as a group, you can meet me here after last period. Sound good? Okay, I'll send out a message on Remind the night before, too." He turned on the smartboard and put up a scoresheet. "Okay, so, everyone grab a buzzer and let's get started! Our first question is in the category of World Literature."

Stephen slammed his buzzer, and Bruce raised his eyebrows. Part of practice was to handle using the buzzers correctly; in actual gameplay, only one team member could only buzz in per question. "Yes, Stephen?"

" _The Tale of Genji_."

Bruce narrowed his eyes at his practice questions. "C'mon, I spend a lot of time making these practice packets, it's not fair if you sneak a peek at them before we get started."

"I didn't cheat!" Stephen protested.

"Yeah, by the time we got here you were already sitting at your desk," Wong said.

"I literally hadn't started asking the question yet," Bruce said. "How could you possibly have guessed the right answer?" It was common for kids to buzz in partly through a question, hoping to correctly anticipate what a question would end up asking, but this was going too far.

"I read your mind," Stephen said, with a wide-eyed stare.

Bruce crossed his arms and returned the stare. He knew his kids thought he was a nice teacher, but he didn't want to be considered a pushover.

"Fine. I've been paying attention to the order your packets tend to go in. I made a spreadsheet. You usually start off with world literature, and so far this year you haven't asked anything about _The Tale of Genji_ , which is an extremely common question, given its status as the world's first novel. I just decided to gamble on you asking about it today."

"Okay, fine, 10 points. Just keep in mind that that tactic won't work at tournaments."

"Obviously," Stephen replied, with a small flourish of his cape.

"Since I didn't get to actually ask my question, let me ask a quick bonus question--anybody know who--"

Stephen buzzed in again. "Murasaki Shikibu."

"Sorry, Stephen, incorrect."

"What? No way, it's commonly accepted that she wrote a _The Tale of Genji_."

"You're absolutely right, but that's not the question I was in the middle of asking. I'll continue for the rest of the team. Does anybody know who's headlining Coachella next year?"

Darcy buzzed in a split second before Shuri and said, smugly, "Next year's lineup hasn't been announced yet."

"Okay, thanks Darcy, I'll check back with you before I decide if I'm gonna get tickets." He threw 10 points up on the board for her and moved on, amidst general laughter.

Practice continued smoothly, with no further acts of mentalism from Stephen Strange. Bruce really enjoyed working with the gifted oddballs of Infinite Horizons Academy, and it seemed like they more or less enjoyed working with him. He'd deliberated for a long time before accepting the job offer here; he had felt like he was doing good by teaching students at schools with the greatest need. 

He'd worked in New York public schools for five years, but being a public school teacher had been taking all of Bruce's mental resources and barely compensating him with any financial resources. Looking for a change of pace, he'd applied for the Peace Corps and been sent to teach in a remote Colombian village for two years.

Bruce had returned to New York in June and jumped immediately into applying for jobs for the next school year. His friend Betty persuaded him to consider the IHA position. "You can just sign a contract for a year with the charter school, and if you totally hate it, I'm sure you can get your old job back, or one like it. New York public schools are _always_ hiring," she'd said. "But I know adjusting back to life in the US is going to be hard enough. Why not try to make it a little easier on yourself by working for a school that gives their teachers a little more support?" 

Betty was a professor of biology at NYU and a friend of Bruce's from grad school. In fact, she was the only person he still kept in touch with from those days; the only one who remembered how bad his complex PTSD had gotten under all the stress of the PhD program and still talked to him. Betty was brilliant and bubbly and had always understood where Bruce was coming from, since her father hadn't exactly been a picnic either.

Bruce had managed to excel in high school and graduated early, after which he and his mother had finally moved out of his abusive father's house. Once Bruce knew she was safe, he'd scraped together all the scholarships he could get and fled Ohio and the bad memories that lingered there in favor of the anonymity of New York. There, he graduated from Columbia early by simply keeping his head down and working so hard that he didn't have time to think about anything else. He hadn't had much fun in college, but his all professors loved him and nobody hurt him. Bruce had had no complaints about the experience.

But by grad school he discovered that could only maintain that pace for so long. Things had hit a breaking point in the middle of quals. His PTSD had started manifesting with sudden, intense outbursts of anger that had driven everyone else away and ruined a lot of expensive lab equipment. If Betty hadn't realized what was going on and dragged him into student health services and convinced their mentor Dr. Selvig to give Bruce a leave of absence while he recovered, he was sure he never would have gotten his PhD. In fact, he'd probably be in jail or worse, the way he'd been spiraling. He hadn't hurt anyone, but he'd definitely thought about it.

So when he got back from the Peace Corps and Betty suggested he take the charter school job...he took it. Her advice tended to be worth following. He was so grateful to have her ongoing support, although their brief flirtation had fizzled out long ago. 

Bruce made a mental note to grab lunch with Betty soon, and then turned his focus back to practice. After all of his students had at least five correct answers on the board--Bruce was pretty sure that Shuri had held herself back on a few questions to allow this to happen, but he said nothing about that--he pulled a package of cookies out of his messenger bag.

Immediately, Darcy said, "Waaait a minute, Dr. B, you said you had aspirational _Oreos_."

"I do," Bruce said, holding up the package.

"Those are _Newman-Os_ ," Darcy said, her tone wounded.

Bucky asked, "What's a Newman-O?"

"They're like, hippie Oreos," Darcy explained. "Ugh, I should have known."

"They taste the same," Bruce protested.

"It's so sad that you think that," Darcy said.

Bucky opened the package and cautiously took a bite of a cookie. "He's right, it tastes the same."

"Thank you, Bucky," Bruce said. 

The cookies were passed around, and Darcy grudgingly took a few. "If we win on Friday, you should get us real Oreos, though," she said.

"Real Oreos have high fructose corn syrup in them," Bruce said.

"Duh, that's why they're so delicious."

"I could get Fig Newmans if--"

"No! No, these are great, thank you," Darcy said hurriedly. Bruce had brought in the organic Fig Newton knockoffs to one of their first practices and had been surprised by how much everyone hated them, even Bucky, who seemed to eat pretty much everything else without complaint.

Bruce smiled. "OK, so, now that you're all sugared up, our next question is in the category of Social Studies. Founded in 1963 and held in Queens, this event notably showcased new--"

Bucky buzzed in. "Stark Expo."

"Correct!" He marked the points and read the next question. Eventually, he looked up and saw Dr. Foster standing in the doorway. She said nothing, and Bruce wasn't clear how long she'd been standing there.

"Oh, hey, Dr. Foster. Did you need something?"

"Oh, I just wanted to chat with you for a second. I didn't want to interrupt, I just thought your practice ended at 5:00."

Bruce glanced up at the clock, which showed 5:05. "Oh! It did. Sorry guys, didn't mean to keep you late. I'll see you Friday after school! Blazers! Permission slips!" 

"High fructose corn syrup!" Darcy replied.

"What?" Dr. Foster asked.

"Nothing," Darcy said, giving Bruce a meaningful stare.

Shuri and Bucky quickly put away the buzzer system while the other kids filed out of the room. Bruce waved them toward the door. Normally, most of the kids hung out in his classroom well after practice ended, goofing around and occasionally even doing homework. Bruce didn't usually mind; he remembered being a teen and doing anything to avoid going home. But he didn't think he'd want an audience for this discussion. 

Dr. Foster closed the door behind them, then came to sit at one of the student desks, looking at Bruce. 

"How was practice? The few minutes I saw looked good!"

"Um, yeah, good, they're a really good group."

"I know it's your first year here at Infinite Horizons. How's everything going so far?"

"Yeah, really good, it's...this is a great school," Bruce said, hoping he wasn't about to get fired. He'd only been here for a few months and he didn't think he'd managed to screw things up too badly, but some part of his mind was always willing to jump to the worst case scenario.

"Good, glad to hear it. I feel like I haven't really gotten a chance to know you yet. I never see you in the staff lounge." 

"Yeah, I guess I...usually just eat lunch at my desk, I like to have a little bit of quiet time when I can."

"That's certainly fair," Dr. Foster said with a smile. "It seems like you have a good rapport with your students, anyway."

"They're great kids."

"Oh yes." She tapped on the desk for a minute. Between the two of them, there was a lot of nervous energy in the room. Finally, Jane ended the awkward silence by saying, "So...I wanted to talk to you about the match on Friday, against Midtown?"

"Oh, I reminded the kids to turn in their extracurricular permission slips. Most of them already turned them in anyway."

"Yes, good." Dr. Foster tapped the desk again and said, "How closely do you follow local politics?"

Bruce grimaced. "Probably not as closely as I should. I've been feeling pretty out of it since I got back from Colombia, to be honest."

"That's right, you just got back from the Peace Corps, didn't you?" Jane said, with an approving nod. 

"In June," Bruce said. He probably should have used the summer to do some more catching up on stuff he'd missed, but the reverse culture shock had hit him harder than he'd expected. Peace Corps's Close of Service process had advised them that going home wouldn't be easy, but Bruce hadn't really taken the warnings to heart until he'd found himself moved to tears by a simple drinking fountain in Central Park. He didn't think he could have handled taking in too much more new information so soon after his return. He still hadn't gotten around to finding a new therapist; his last one had moved to California while Bruce had been away.

"Well...the thing is...a few weeks ago, the state legislature let mayoral control of the schools lapse, which means that now authority over the schools falls with the Board of Education."

"Oh," Bruce said. 

"Which has happened in the past, and it's usually not a big deal. It's usually more of an...oversight that's been corrected before any major changes. But also recently, the mayor appointed a new Schools Chancellor, his name is Stan Thanos?"

"Oh yeah, hmm, I think I did hear about that. He's Gamora and Nebula's dad, right?" Bruce had met Mr. Thanos at Parents' Night at the beginning of the school year. He'd mentioned working for the Department of Education and given Bruce such a firm handshake that it had left imprints of his rings in Bruce's fingers, but Bruce hadn't seen him since.

"Yes. He has very limited custody of them. I, uh...I gather it was a fairly contentious divorce. But the important thing is that now _he's_ in charge of the schools. Unfortunately, he has some very...strict ideas about how to allocate resources among the schools, and he's managed to get the school board to declare a state of emergency, which gives him a lot of power. As a charter school, we're somewhat protected from budget cuts, but we could still be affected, especially since he seems to be trying hard to revoke a lot of charters."

"Oh. That sounds...bad. He wouldn't close his kids' school, though, right?"

"Or we'll be under even more scrutiny than other schools!" Jane replied, her tone tinged with panic. She visibly took a deep breath before she continued, "No, look, I'm…sure it will be fine, I've just been trying to stay ahead of some rumors I've heard from other principals. So, I just wanted to keep you in the loop, and...well. Midtown is kind of our rival, and if your team can turn in a strong performance this season, I'm sure that can only help our case. As you probably know, we have a much higher budget than a lot of other schools in the city, so we want to look like the best possible return on that investment."

"Well, we were planning to try to win anyway," Bruce said drily.

"Yes, of course, I didn't mean to imply otherwise." She cleared her throat. "I, ah, I also wasn't sure if you had heard about Midtown's new academic decathlon coach?"

"No," Bruce said. He was usually out of the loop about this stuff. In addition to the more formal email listserv, there was also a locked Facebook group for local academic decathlon coaches that might shares some gossip from time to time. Bruce was technically a member, but he generally avoided social media whenever possible. It tended to elevate his anxiety.

"Well, um, just so you're prepared, their coach this season is apparently, um, Tony Stark."

"Tony Stark? The, uh, _the_ Tony Stark?" Even though Bruce practically lived under the proverbial rock, he was still familiar with the consumer tech company Stark Industries and its charismatic CEO, who had recently appeared as a guest on one of Bruce's favorite NPR shows, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Bruce wasn't a SI fanboy the way many were, eagerly waiting for Tony's showy public announcements of his newest device or upgrade, or following Tony's many public playboy exploits in the tabloids. But he'd enjoyed Stark's appearance on the radio show, where he'd managed to be entertaining _and_ promote the fact that, unlike his competitors, his company's products were all made from sustainably-sourced rare earth minerals.

Bruce didn't need a lot of fancy technology in his personal life. He'd only gotten a StarkPhone for the first time since he got back from Colombia, and it had been a refurbished older model. (The kids of his former host family had insisted that he needed to get a smartphone so he could chat with them on WhatsApp. They'd taught him everything he knew about emojis.)

Bruce and a lot of his fellow Peace Corps volunteers had gotten grants from the Stark Foundation, with donations of technology and the money needed to implement them. Tony Stark was partially responsible for providing clean water and solar panels to a lot of families in Bruce's village, and his products worked really well. Bruce had trained the villagers in how to maintain the new tech, and he was sure they'd have clean water and energy for the foreseeable future.

"Yeah. _The_ Tony Stark. I guess it's part of some kind of community service requirement?"

"Requirement?" Bruce asked with furrowed brows.

"Well," Dr. Foster said, leaning forward and dropping her voice slightly. "Did you hear the rumor about when he had that drunk driving accident?"

"No."

"Hmm. Well, it was at least a few months ago. He was the only person involved, and he only had minor injuries, but he was apparently drunk and hit a parked school bus. But he hadn't technically been driving, it was a prototype self-driving car, so...you really don't remember hearing about this? I mean, they tried to keep it quiet but the police report got leaked...there were definitely some jokes about it on the late night shows."

"Well, I only got back from Colombia in June and I had almost no access to news before that, so...I must have missed it."

"Right. Right. Well...anyway, it was all settled out of court and all blew over pretty quickly, but now he's doing community service at Midtown."

"I don't think it's fair to the kids to have _teaching_ be a court-ordered punishment," Bruce said. "Is he even certified?" Teaching was hard enough when it was something you _wanted_ to do. There was no way kids would get a quality education from someone who had been pressed into the job.

"Oh, he's not teaching any classes, he's only coaching the team. Also, since the details are hush-hush we don't know for sure that it's court-ordered...that's just the rumor. It...it might just be some kind of...publicity thing," Dr. Foster said doubtfully.

"Still," Bruce said.

With forced optimism, Dr. Foster added, "Or who knows, maybe it's just his new hobby? I suppose it's not professional of me to speculate...anyway, to be honest, their last coach wasn't a particularly responsible adult, either."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, they fired him after some shenanigans at Nationals last year."

"Shenanigans?" Bruce felt sorely out of the loop.

Dr. Foster waved her hand dismissively. "It all turned out fine, but while they were there for the tournament, they took a field trip to the Washington Monument and some of the kids got stuck in a damaged elevator, and some others were totally unaccounted for...awhile. It was very dramatic at the time, and he'd already been on probation from some issues on other field trips."

"Wow." Bruce rubbed his temples. "OK, so, what you're saying is, no pressure, but we should beat Tony Stark's team, who are last year's state champions, on Friday so our school charter isn't revoked?"

Dr. Foster winced. "I don't think it will be as dramatic as that. I'm just saying....try your best. We want to cast Infinite Horizons in the brightest possible light."

"Of course. Um, thanks for the update."

She smiled. "Thanks for all your hard work. We're all rooting for you. Let me know if there's anything I can do to support you and your team."

"I think we're all set, thanks, but I'll let you know if anything comes to mind."

"Please do. Have a good night, Dr. Banner," she said, standing to leave. She paused in the doorway and called back, "And you should come out with us after the match on Friday, the teachers and staff are going to happy hour at that gastropub, The Sword and Shield. I'm sure we'll still be there."

"Uh, yeah, maybe we'll have something to celebrate," Bruce said. Jane held up two crossed fingers and headed back down the hallway.

Alone again, Bruce took a few more deep breaths. He reminded himself that their secret weapon had gone to school in Wakanda last year, so this would be a whole different team dynamic. Plus, he was sure that if he did get fired, he could get his job back at P.S. 62. New York Public Schools generally had a lot of staff turnover.

Still, he didn't think it would hurt if he prepared some more practice packets, maybe read up a bit on any trends other coaches had noticed in the official questions. He was ten tabs deep in that when his phone buzzed with a message from his roommate, Thor.

He'd met Thor through his Peace Corps friend Val. Val had connected with Thor online somehow, and when he and his brother Loki came to visit Val in Colombia, Bruce tagged along for a few weeks of backpacking around South America with them. Then it turned out that Thor had taken a job in New York around the same time Bruce was returning. It was a tenuous connection, but it beat having to comb through Craigslist. (Bruce had made it very clear that he was only interested in living with Thor, not his brother; fortunately, Loki had yet to materialize in their apartment.) Still, so far their roommateship was amicable enough. A lot of potential conflict was avoided because they were both early risers: Bruce for his school schedule, and Thor for his workout schedule.

 _Banner! We are saving you a seat at the big table on the far left. Are you near?_

Although it was his second or third language, Thor spoke flawless, if oddly formal, English. Even in texts.

Bruce frowned at the message in confusion, then remembered that over the weekend, Thor had mentioned something about pub trivia with his CrossFit friends. Bruce hadn't realized that he'd agreed to go--he thought it was more along the lines of _Let's get coffee sometime_ , where you never actually get the coffee, but you both feel vaguely positive about the theoretical social interaction.

He wrote back, _Sorry! Something came up at work. What time does it start?_

The response came quickly, _7! You must come, you are our secret weapon_.

It was quarter of 7, and trivia was at the Asgard, a bar around the corner from their apartment, about 20 minutes away by bike.

_Sorry--I'm still at school, I won't make it in time._

_We will save your seat and do our best to persevere until you arrive._

Then a blurry image of a green liquid in one of Thor's blender cups came through. _Your smoothie will melt if you do not hurry._

Thor had brought a smoothie to the bar for Bruce, knowing that Bruce didn't drink. It was incredibly thoughtful, and it made Bruce feel like shit. Bruce buried his face in his hands. He really didn't want to go. He was sure it would be crowded, and even though Thor was very nice, Bruce had no idea what all of his CrossFit friends would be like. Plus, he'd have to rush, and he'd still be late, and everyone would look at him when he walked in...he just wasn't up for it.

 _Sorry! I can't make it. You should drink it. Good luck! Sorry!_ He hit send, then realized he'd apologized twice in the same text message. 

Thor's response came back quickly, a simple _:(_

 _Sorry! Next time!_ Bruce replied, assuming Thor would forget about him by whenever the next trivia night was. No reply came. Bruce felt a familiar combination of guilt and relief. He did decide to take it as a sign that he should get out of the school and go home. He shut down his computer, took his messenger bag, and headed out to the bike rack. 

Bruce put on his helmet and bike light and took off at a brisk pace. He tried to bike as long as the weather wasn't atrocious. The exercise usually made him feel better, and even though the traffic was perilous, he preferred it to being crammed in a subway car. 

Bruce did feel somewhat better by the time he got home, though still worried about his students and his roommate. He did a short yoga flow, then went to bed with an old episode of This American Life playing in his earbuds, hoping to be asleep before Thor got home so he didn't have to talk to him. Maybe he'd figure out how to socialize like a reasonably normal human being next week, after he survived his first academic decathlon match of the year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PS: just in case you were wondering, [the New York City Department of Education does in fact have a convoluted system where the state legislature must actively grant the mayor control of the schools, and if they let it lapse it goes to the Schools Chancellor](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/20/nyregion/what-if-mayors-school-control-lapses-a-2009-episode-offers-clues.html). Fortunately, the Schools Chancellor is not actually Thanos. I'm still playing fast and loose with the rules but I am definitely starting from a system with a bit of chaos baked into it.
> 
> (You probably weren't wondering.)


	2. Feeling Like a Criminal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday, Tony Stark! Sorry about your life.
> 
> Also, I tried to make this as clear as possible in the narrative, but I could not find a non-clunky way to say within the story: in this universe, Stark Industries has never made weapons. So there you go.

"Tony, what are you still doing here? You have academic decathlon!" Pepper asked.

Looking up from his latest engine prototype, Tony blinked and said, "No, I don't. Practices are Mondays and Wednesdays. Today's Friday." He was frankly pretty proud of himself for remembering all that.

"Today is Friday...and you have your first academic decathlon _match_ of the year. You know, the thing you've been practicing _for_? I know it's on your calendar, because I put it there!"

"That does sound familiar," Tony admitted. "I'm supposed to go to those, too?"

"You're their coach!"

"Yeah, but Michelle is their captain...they seem pretty self-sufficient, honestly."

"Tony, I swear to god, if you screw this up you are going to be picking up trash on the highway. Do you even know how hard Matt worked to get you sentenced to _just_ community service when your blood alcohol content was that high? Or how hard I worked to convince Nat to give you a decent community service opportunity?"

"Okay, okay, you're right, you're the best, Pepper," Tony said, and bent his head back over his work table. Truthfully, he resented everything about his academic decathlon "volunteering." For starters, he was completely innocent and it was ridiculous that he was being punished at all. _He'd_ been the only person hurt in that accident, anyway.

Pepper was right, in that it would _seem_ that academic decathlon would be a better fit for his community service than trash pickup. But in fact, he had no idea what he was doing, and he had to go all the way to _Queens_ to do it. The kids missed their old coach. They mostly seemed to hate Tony, and the feeling was more or less mutual. They didn't need Tony at all, and his presence felt like a waste of everyone's time. More than anything, Tony hated having his time wasted. Tony had such a hard time focusing on his work since his accident, but he felt like he was close to another breakthrough. He'd get ready for the match as soon as he got to a good stopping point. 

"Tony! You can't just say that and expect me to go away. You also have to do the thing I'm telling you to do. Which is...to get changed out of those clothes and get to Midtown School of Science and Technology. Now! Their match against Infinite Horizons Academy is at 4!”

“Fine,” Tony grumbled. “Do I have time to shower?”

“If you’re quick. Have you been drinking?”

"Not since lunch!"

Tony tried his best to take a quick shower, but he had to unwrap his ribs, still bruised from the airbag in his stupid self-driving car. And then he had to re-wrap them. It was exhausting, but he'd already been lectured enough about how they'd been healing badly due to his own neglect. He put on worn, comfortable jeans and a soft old T-shirt. He should at least be comfortable if he had to be dragged away from his pet project, something that would open up brand new directions for SI. Something that would finally, definitively prove to the board that Tony was smarter than his father. 

In his mind, he was trying to hold onto the idea he'd had about his engine. He'd need to restructure the piston--as he walked to the living room, he said, "Hey, JARVIS, remind me when I get home, about the piston."

"Anything in particular I should remind you of, sir?"

"Uh--the--fuck." This was why Tony hated being interrupted. How was he supposed to get his company back on track when he was constantly losing his train of thought? "Narrower! If I change the alloy it can be narrower, shaped more like a, uh, hourglass, uh, hi, Pepper. JARVIS, did you get that? It should make the whole thing operate more efficiently."

"When you get home, I will remind you of exactly what you said," JARVIS said drily.

Pepper raised her eyebrows at Tony. “I think you’re supposed to dress up.”

“What? It’s high school academic decathlon, not the Met Gala.” 

“Yeah, but it's to show respect...here, Happy got your dry cleaning. At least put on this blazer,” Pepper said, proffering a plastic-wrapped garment. 

“Fine,” Tony grumbled. He didn't mind dressing up for events--he liked to look good--but this whole thing was stupid and he didn't want to put any more pressure on his aching body than he had to. Pepper surveyed his finished outfit with pursed lips and a shrug. 

“That'll have to do. Happy’s waiting with the car. Good luck!”

“Thanks, Pep.” Tony hoped she could tell he meant it. He knew he’d been in a bad mood since his accident. He made a mental note to send her flowers or something. Or have her send herself flowers? Oh, Happy could do it. Happy was waiting for Tony. Right. Tony got himself out of the house and into the Audi. He couldn't wait until his license was reinstated; even though Happy was technically employed as his driver, Tony had always preferred to drive himself. Besides, it was so stupid to have his license suspended for an accident that occurred when he technically wasn't even driving.

When he got to Midtown, after checking in with the school secretary, who hated him despite Tony's ever-escalating attempts to charm her, he discovered that their usual practice classroom was empty. Had Pepper gotten the date wrong? He’d be furious if his workflow had been interrupted for no reason. Just as he pulled out his phone to check, Peter and Ned peeked into the classroom. Tony smiled at them. When he'd first started at Midtown, he'd immediately pegged the two boys as completely starstruck SI fanboys. Tony had thought it would be annoying, but they'd turned out to be lifesavers. (Okay, occasionally annoying lifesavers, but still, it was nice to have _someone_ give him the benefit of the doubt around there.)

“Oh! Hey Mr. Stark, we thought maybe you were in here,” Peter said. 

“MJ thought you blew us off but we thought maybe you just forgot our matches are in the cafetorium,” Ned clarified. 

"The _cafetorium_?" Tony asked.

"It's the cafeteria but also the auditorium," Peter clarified. "Remember?"

“Cafeteria but also the auditorium...that is grim. We need to better fund these schools. ...Anyway, how can I remember something I'm just now hearing?”

Ned coughed and pointed at the whiteboard. Tony turned; sure enough, in the top right corner it said, in Michelle’s precise handwriting, “ACADEMIC DECATHLON MATCH VS IHA, 4PM FRIDAY, ROOM 100.” And in another handwriting was added “(the cafetorium)”.

“Oh. Right,” Tony said. Maybe that did sound kind of familiar. He checked the time. “Oh, it’s only 3:45, we have plenty of time.”

“Um, yeah, totally,” Peter said. 

"But we should start walking," Ned added. Tony followed the boys through the labyrinthine hallways, letting their excited chatter wash over him. The cafetorium was set up with two tables with buzzer systems on a small raised platform, and rows of plastic chairs half-filled with parents and friends. Larger tables had been rolled against one wall to make more room in the grim room.

"Oh my god, this is a spectator sport?" Tony asked. That thought hadn't occurred to him.

"My grandma usually comes," Ned said.

"That sounds about right," Tony muttered.

They crossed the room through the audience chairs up to the front, where most of the rest of the Midtown team was assembled, clad in bright yellow blazers, although Tony didn't see their captain, Michelle. He looked around and spotted her talking to a member of the Infinite Horizons team, a black girl with elaborate braids and a regal bearing. She looked kind of like the princess of Wakanda.

He opened his mouth to make a joke about Michelle defecting, when a 30-something guy wearing nerdy wire-frame glasses and a purple shirt under a brown suit approached Tony with his hand outstretched and a nervous expression on his face.

"Hi, I'm Bruce Banner."

"Always nice to meet a fan," Tony said graciously.

Banner's lips quirked; his expression grew slightly less nervous and slightly more amused. He dropped Tony's hand and pulled a school staff badge lanyard out from under his suitcoat. "I, ah, I'm the coach for Infinite Horizons, just wanted to introduce myself before the match. You're coaching for Midtown, right?"

"Ah. Right. Yes. Of course. Hello." God, this guy must think Tony was such an asshole. Tony was just so used to people wanting things from him.

Banner offered him a lopsided grin and said, "I mean, I _am_ also a fan. The Stark Foundation does a lot of great work. And, uh, I'm a fan of your shirt." 

Tony looked down and realized he was wearing a T-shirt that was, in retrospect, perhaps inappropriate to wear in a high school. It had a cartoon cat on it and read, "Schrodinger's Cat Walks Into A Bar/Schrodinger's Cat Doesn't Walk Into a Bar." And Banner was wearing an actual suit. With a periodic table of elements tie. Shit, Pepper was probably right, as usual. Tony should have dressed up for this. But Tony just smiled, as if everything was going according to plan. "Thanks!"

"I, uh, I think it probably answers my question, actually, but--uh, some of the other coaches can be pretty strict about the dress code and stuff, and I'm kind of getting the sense that that's not your style, but one of my players wanted to ask if you care if they wear the uniform blazers for the match?"

"What do they want to wear instead?" 

Banner sighed. "It's, uh, he's kind of a quirky kid--"

"Does your team have any kids who _aren't_ quirky? I'm pretty sure mine doesn't."

Banner laughed. "Well, that's fair, I guess. Anyway, he just really likes to wear this cape...er, cloak. Do you mind if he wears it? It's--it's totally fine if you don't want him to, it is technically against the rules."

"I'm actually dying to see it."

"Well, uh, I'll go let him know he can put it on, and you won't be able to miss it." Banner extended his hand for another shake. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Stark. Good luck."

"Thanks. You too."

Banner nodded once and walked back to his team. Tony couldn't make out their conversation, but he watched Banner speak to a skinny white boy with patchy facial hair, who flashed a quick smile and pulled a red velvet cape out of his backpack. 

Michelle returned to the Midtown team and gave Tony an unimpressed look. "Oh, Mr. Stark, you made it."

"Wouldn't miss it!" Tony said with forced cheer. Michelle could undoubtedly run the team without any assistance from Tony; she essentially _was_ running the team without assistance from Tony, since he still didn't really know what he was doing there. But on paper, Tony was in charge, and that clearly irritated Michelle.

Michelle grimly reported, "Their new captain is an exchange student from Wakanda." Tony raised his eyebrows. Shit, was it actually Princess Shuri? He'd met her once at some charity gala but that had been awhile ago. While Tony tried to sneak another look at the opposing team, Michelle continued, "I think she's probably going to single-handedly destroy us, the school system there is so advanced. I'm starting me, Peter, Ned, Cindy, and Manuela."

"Yay!" Manuela said. She was the Midtown team's exchange student, from France or Portugal or maybe Korea? Tony couldn't remember where she was from. He found her deeply weird, but generally likeable.

"Okay, well...go get 'em?" Tony said.

"Thanks for the pep talk," Michelle said flatly.

"Aw, c'mon, you're starting _Mantis_ over me?" Flash asked.

"She's been to more practices than you have this month," Michelle said. Manuela proudly adjusted her gigantic hair bow. 

"You need my math skills!" Flash protested.

"Look, I'm starting Manuela, if we do need your math skills, Mr. Stark can call for a time-out and sub you in. Right?" Michelle turned her sharp gaze on Tony. Within five years, Michelle would either be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company or the leader of a successful movement to overthrow the government, Tony was sure of it. Maybe she could be CEO of SI. She'd probably do a better job of it than Tony.

"Right," Tony agreed. 

The kids settled into their seats, and the match began. Tony watched numbly as the Infinite Horizons kids _murdered_ his team. By halftime, the score was 225-10. His team hadn't even managed to ring in on a single toss-up question; they'd just managed to scrape together a few points from bonus rounds.

"Wow, I don't know what to say," Tony said. "Uh, I guess I should have given you a better pep talk?"

"You should have pulled out Mantis and put me in, coach!" Flash said furiously.

"No offense, Flash, but I don't think that would have saved us against Shuri," Michelle said. "But yeah, you should start this half. Sorry, Manuela."

Tony looked at his cluster of miserable teens and bit back a sigh. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed someone approaching. He turned and saw Bruce Banner sidling up to him. Tony raised his eyebrows. "If you came over here to spy on our strategy, I don't think that's going to be helpful for you."

"Oh, uh, no, actually, I just wanted to offer your team some Oreos? If that's okay?" He held out a package of cookies, an uncertain look on his face.

Tony stared at him.

"I--sorry, I don't know if any of your students have allergies or anything, we just, uh, had some extras. I know it's not the healthiest--"

Michelle took the package out of his hands. "No allergies here. Thanks, Dr. Banner."

Banner smiled. "You're welcome. Good luck with the rest of the match." He walked away quickly.

Tony took the cookies out of Michelle's hands. "Wait, are you sure we should take food from the competition?"

"It's still sealed," Michelle said.

“Plus I don’t think he needs to poison us for his team to win,” Ned said. 

“High fructose corn syrup is kind of a poison,” Manuela said brightly. “A delicious kind of poison!”

“Okay, well, it’s your funerals,” Tony said. He looked over at the IHA team, who were all eating Oreos and laughing. "Wait, was I supposed to bring snacks? No one told me I was supposed to bring snacks."

"Oh, Mr. Stark is sad because he has failed to provide for us," Manuela said, with a sympathetic head tilt.

"If we did tell you, would you listen?" Michelle asked.

Peter quickly said, "No, Mr. Stark, you don't have to."

"It's not like soccer when everyone has to take turns bringing orange slices," Ned added.

"What do you know about soccer, Ned?" Flash asked.

"I played it when I was a kid!" said Ned, who was definitely still a kid. 

The Midtown team ate the cookies, happy for a distraction from their ongoing defeat, while Tony was left to ponder the gesture. What was Banner's motive? Was he actually just being nice, or did he want something from Tony? Was it a gesture of pity? Maybe a weird flirting technique? He glanced at Banner again and decided he wouldn't mind if it had been a flirt.

Then their moderator announced the end of halftime, and the match started up again. Tony noticed that IHA's team was starting an almost entirely different set of players, including the kid with the cape. These seemed to be the second-stringers, and against them, Midtown was able to get a few more points on the board. Still, they clearly had no hope of catching up. Tony miserably watched their defeat. How had his life come to this? He'd fucked up his self-driving car, which had fucked up his body, but somehow he still had to be further punished by coaching this fucked-up team?

The shocking thing was, he'd really thought the Midtown kids were pretty smart. He'd been unsure of what he was supposed to do to coach them; it seemed like they already knew all the stuff they were supposed to know. He hadn't imagined that there'd be another team out there who could beat them so handily. And this was only their first match of the year! What were the other schools out there like?

He was so lost in this depressing thought spiral that he barely noticed when the match finally ended, 380-75. He watched as his team packed up the buzzer system and began to disperse. Peter called out to him, "Hey Mr. Stark--" and then Michelle elbowed him, and he said, "Uh, we'll see you on Monday, for practice!"

"Okay, yeah, Monday," Tony replied. He wondered if he should have given them some kind of post-match speech, but he wasn't even sure what he would have said. They'd done poorly and they knew it. He decided to go ask Banner if he wanted to get a post-game drink. Maybe he could get some pointers on this whole academic decathlon thing. Plus, Banner was pretty cute, in an absent-minded professor kind of way. And he'd told Tony he was a fan of the Stark Foundation, which was flattering in a different way from the people who told Tony how much they loved his tech or how cool they thought he was personally. Certainly much better than the people who just wanted a selfie with him for their social media profiles but didn't actually seem to know anything about Tony at all. 

But when Tony made it across the room to Banner's side, he heard Shuri say, in her precise accent, "Dr. Banner, we're going out for pizza. Will you please join us?"

Banner smiled and shook his head. "Oh, I'm sure you'll all have more fun without me."

A girl with long brown hair, who'd come into the game in the 2nd half, stage whispered, "But Dr. B, if you don't come out with us, then I'll have to make fun of Stephen instead of you, and you know how sensitive he is."

Banner laughed. "Okay, fine, for Stephen's sake, let's go." He put his messenger bag over his shoulder and turned to leave. "Oh, hi, Mr. Stark."

"Please, call me Tony."

"Okay. Um, and I'm Bruce, then. Good match, Tony. I'm sure I'll see you around this season," Bruce said, offering another handshake.

"Yeah, I'm sure I will," Tony replied, his invitation dying in his throat. Bruce's team actually _liked_ him. Tony realized that Peter had been about to invite Tony to go out with his own team and been shut down. It wasn't that Tony even _wanted_ to go have pizza with a bunch of high schoolers, but it would have been nice to have been invited.

Oblivious to Tony's inner turmoil, Bruce retracted his handshake and tucked his hands in his pockets. He said, "You'd better go catch up with your team!" as he followed his own team out of the room.

Tony sighed. He checked his phone and saw messages from Pepper and Happy, asking how the match had gone and when he needed to be picked up. Pepper had followed up with some reminders about the presentation he needed to prepare for the board meeting on Monday. Tony should probably start working on that soon. The board had been looking for a reason to out Tony as CEO for the last twelve years, ever since he'd turned 21 and officially taken control of the company. 

But until recently, Tony hadn't given them a good enough reason. His inventions were brilliant and profitable, and the headlines his youthful partying generated only served as free publicity for SI. His work was good enough to excuse his eccentric behavior. Until this stupid thing with the self-driving car started to make them--and the shareholders--think that maybe it wasn't.

He ignored Pepper and Happy and instead called Rhodey, hoping his old friend would be free for drinks. Tony definitely needed a drink.

Fortunately, Rhodey answered on the second ring. "Hey Tony, what's up?" 

"I'm back in high school. I really need a drink. You free?"

"I'm sure you could find some spiked punch in the teachers' lounge or something."

"Very funny. Seriously, drinks tonight? You name the place."

"Sorry, Tony, I actually have a date tonight."

"A date? With who?"

"Carol, I told you about her."

"Oh yeah. Wow, things are getting kind of serious, huh?"

"Hope so. But let's get something on the calendar. Lunch tomorrow?"

"Yeah, sounds good. You can tell me all about Carol."

"A gentleman doesn't kiss and tell, Tony."

"If you were a gentleman, we wouldn't be friends."

"Touché. Well, I gotta get going. See you tomorrow!"

"Bye." Tony hung up and scrolled through his phone. He had tons of contacts; people who would be thrilled to invited to a Stark party or to collaborate on a project with him. And of course, he had wonderful employees. But in terms of actual friends who he wanted to talk to one-on-one, he pretty much just had Rhodey. And now Rhodey had a girlfriend. He knew Rhodey would come if Tony _really_ needed him, but Tony was at least self-aware enough to know that his burst of loneliness didn't really constitute an emergency.

Still, Tony needed a drink now more than ever, so he searched for the nearest bar. Online reviews made it sound like a real dive, but that was fine. He walked over there, unwilling to deal with Happy's concern if he asked for a ride. That's another thing that would be great about a self-driving car; not only would it be safer than a human driver, but also it wouldn't judge its passengers. Tony enjoyed a few shots of whiskey and self-pity. He didn't see a single person in the shitty bar he wanted to flirt with. On one hand, that was depressing, although it was good to know that he still had some standards.

When he finally decided to call Happy, he saw that he had several increasingly angry texts from Pepper, and he realized he'd never responded to her first one. Well, he'd deal with that later. 

Tony stepped out of the dim, windowless bar into a downpour. It was kind of nice of Mother Nature to match Tony's overall bleak mood. He hurried into Happy's waiting car.

"How'd the match go, boss?"

"Well, you just picked me up alone from a dive bar instead of a high school, so how do you think it went?"

"Ah. Well, I'm sure you'll get 'em next time."

Tony sighed and stared out the window. In the evening light, he thought he saw a familiar figure standing at the bus stop on the corner. "Hey, pull over, I think I know that guy."

"You _think_?" 

"Just pull over, let's give him a ride."

"I'm not picking up a murderous hitchhiker."

"He's not, he--it's definitely him, okay, I just couldn't tell at first in the rain. He's a high school teacher."

"Doesn't mean he's not also a murderer," Happy muttered darkly, but he pulled up at the curb. Bruce glanced at the car's darkly tinted windows and backed away.

Tony rolled down the window. "Wait, Bruce!" he called.

Bruce turned. He was fully soaked from the rain and looked miserable. "Oh, hey, uh, Tony." He gestured at the bike that was propped against the bus stop sign. "I, uh, got a flat tire."

"Well, get in, we'll give you a ride." 

"Oh, no, that's okay, I--there's a bus coming soon."

"C'mon, I owe you for the Oreos." Tony held open the door. His whiskey was hitting him just right, making him feel loose and warm and generally fond of the rest of humanity. "Just get in! It's not getting any _less_ rainy. It'll be on my conscience if you die of pneumonia or whatever."

"Oh, um, thanks, that's very nice of you, but I don't think I'm actually at risk for--"

"--Happy, pop the trunk for his bike."

Happy grudgingly complied, and Bruce and his bike both got in the car. "Sorry," Bruce said. "I--I'm getting water everywhere, I…"

"It'll dry," Tony said. "Where can we take you?"

"Well, I--I live off the G train, but honestly if you can just drop me at any subway station, I'll figure it out, uh, I can take the F to the--"

"We'll just take you home," Tony said firmly. "Where's home?"

"Oh, no, I don't want to inconvenience you. I'm sure it's out of your way." Bruce sighed. He took his glasses off and wiped them on shirt, which was also wet. "I usually have a patch kit and a rain jacket, but I brought a different bag today because I thought it looked more professional than my old backpack, and I didn't check the weather…"

Tony gently placed a hand on Bruce's forearm to stop his nervous chatter. "Hey, it's okay. Just give us an address and we'll stop loitering on this street corner in Queens and take you home."

Bruce finally relented and provided an address in Brooklyn, twisting his hands together as he spoke. He really was cute.

"Congrats on the match, by the way," Tony said. "Your team really crushed mine."

"Oh! Uh, thanks, yeah, they're a great team. I'm really proud of them."

"Can I ask--and I promise, you don't have to answer if this is, you know, professional trade secrets, but I'm really just curious...what do you _do_ at practices?"

"Oh, uh...the usual sorts of things? We do practice packets of questions...I try to customize them to my students' strengths and weaknesses. And we pick different topics each week and try to memorize lists...this week was Spanish monarchs and the years they ruled. Is, uh, is this your first season coaching?"

Tony turned to look at Bruce closely. Beneath his damp curls, his face looked sincere, not mocking. Maybe Tony's PR team had buried the DUI story more successfully than Tony had given them credit for. 

Cautiously, Tony said, "Yeah, it's my first season. My assistant's girlfriend is Midtown's principal, and she told me they were short a coach, so, why not me?" This was all technically true, if leaving out the important detail that he was also there for court-ordered community service hours. It was just that for some reason he didn't want Bruce to think too badly of him, not yet. Tony noticed that Bruce was shivering, and he reached up to turn on his seat warmers.

Bruce smiled. "Oh, that's really nice of you to help, especially when you must have such a busy schedule. But you didn't get any training before you started?"

"Not really, no," Tony said. "I mean, Michelle, the team captain, pretty much runs things anyway, but it would be nice to feel like I had more of an idea of what was going on."

"Yeah, she seems like a good captain, but it's--um, sorry, is the seat getting hot?" He gave Tony a concerned look.

"Oh, I turned on the seat warmers," Tony said.

"Wow!" Bruce pressed his hand against the seat and marveled. "I like my bike--when it's got two functional tires--but it doesn't have this."

Tony snorted. "Yeah, cars have their merits. Seat warmers, roofs, cupholders...plus they keep Happy employed."

"What?" Bruce asked, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

From the front, Tony's driver irritably said, "I'm Happy. I mean, that's my name. Well, a nickname. I'm not actually that happy, generally speaking."

"Oh! Oh, sorry, I didn't introduce myself, I was just--well, hi, Happy, I'm Bruce. I'm not that happy either, most days."

"Me neither," Tony said. "We have so much in common."

Bruce laughed. "Sure, I guess we do."

"Anyway, I take it this isn't _your_ first year coaching?" Tony asked.

"No, ah, not exactly. It's my first year at IHA, but before that I coached for a few public high schools. So I guess it's my sixth year coaching academic decathlon. But, ah, it's my first year back, so it took me a little while to get back into the groove of it."

"Uh, yeah, after that match, I think it's safe to say that you got your groove back," Tony said drily. "What's it your first year back _from_?"

"Oh. Um, I did the Peace Corps?" Bruce said, as if it were a question.

"Really? Wow, where'd you go?"

"Colombia. I spent two years in this little village up in the Andes. It was so beautiful there, and quiet..." Bruce said wistfully. "Ah, sorry, I know people get bored when I talk about it."

"You've barely said a sentence about it. I'm fascinated."

"Well...you know, I did get a Stark Foundation grant for my work," Bruce said, beginning to warm up both literally and metaphorically. "So I guess I kind of owe you a progress report."

"Yes! Absolutely. I'd love to hear about it." Tony was proud of the work the Foundation did, but he didn't have a chance to do as much hands-on work with it as he would like. He was too busy doing pointless shit to keep the board happy, or at least content, and he was fascinated as Bruce told him about the solar panels and water filters he'd installed and what projects the villagers were using their new electrical capabilities for. He also liked how Bruce grew less shy and more animated as he talked about a subject he was obviously passionate about. 

Too, Tony was intrigued when Bruce casually mentioned that he'd been so isolated that he'd missed most of the last two years of US news stories. Bruce really must not know much about Tony's recent issues, which was pretty appealing.

When they arrived in front of a modest apartment building, Bruce said, "Oh! this is me. Thanks so much for the ride, I really appreciate it."

Tony was disappointed to have to end the conversation. He pulled a card out of his wallet and handed it over. "Hey, call me if you ever need another ride. I'll be happy to trade it for academic decathlon tips."

Bruce laughed and tucked the card into his pocket. "Well, thanks. I'm sure I'll see you around. And hey, thanks, Happy, I know this was out of your way and I appreciate it."

"You're welcome," Happy mumbled. Tony could tell he was pleased; Happy generally felt under-appreciated.

The rain had lessened, but it was still coming down as Bruce climbed out of the car and fumbled to get his bike out of the trunk. Tony watched as a gigantic buff Viking of a man popped out of the building's front door. He put an arm around Bruce in a casual side hug and then took the bike out of Bruce's hands. His tank top immediately got wet in the rain and clung to ridiculously well-defined abs, reminding Tony that he should really get back to his personal trainer, just as soon as his ribs stopped aching so much.

Through the rain and the car door, Tony couldn't hear what they were saying, but the two men were obviously intimate with each other. He saw Bruce smile up at the taller man with relief and wave goodbye to Tony before dashing inside the building after the man with his bicycle. Tony sighed, watching Bruce's gorgeous boyfriend carry his bicycle inside for him.

"Take me home, please, Happy."

Happy complied, and Tony dragged himself back to his workshop with a bottle of whiskey. He was already starting to sober up, and he wasn't in the mood for that. JARVIS gave him a completely nonsensical reminder about the status of his prototype.

"Thanks, J, super helpful," Tony said with an eyeroll.

"I followed your instructions to the letter, sir," JARVIS responded. "I can offer playback of what you were working on before you were interrupted?"

"That might help, yeah, thanks." Tony watched himself work for a moment before it all clicked back into place. "Aha! Yes! I'm a genius! J, don't accept any calls or visitors unless it's a for-real, non-high-school-related emergency, okay? But remind me about an hour before my lunch with Rhodey tomorrow."

"Understood, sir."

"And start my playlist."

Alone in his workshop with hard rock blaring in his ears and JARVIS watching over him, Tony felt his afternoon's failures begin to fade away. He might not have a life partner or even a fuck buddy, or a successful community service project, but at least he always had his machines.


	3. Hey Now, You're an All Star

Bruce sat at the end of the conference table, nursing his tea and hoping to keep his head down and get through the early morning faculty meeting without having to talk to anyone. They'd made it most of the way through the agenda, and he thought he'd be able to slink back to his classroom soon, unbothered. But then Dr. Foster said, "And I'd like to congratulate Dr. Banner for the academic decathlon's performance so far this season!" She clapped, and everyone else clapped, and they all looked at Bruce.

"Oh, uh, thanks. It's...they're a great team," Bruce mumbled. He wasn't used to being the center of attention from other adults.

"Well, keep it up. Good luck at the inter-city tournament next weekend," Dr. Foster said with a bright smile. "Extracurricular success like this helps contribute to IHA's great reputation."

"Thanks."

"And now...uh, some news about the budget," Dr. Foster said, her smile fading. "The good news is...despite the rumors, we're not facing closure."

"But…?" prompted Dr. Cho.

Dr. Foster sighed. "But we did lose funding for the fall break externship program."

Teachers around the table grumbled, and Bruce joined them. His students were really looking forward to their externships. 

"I know, I know," Dr. Foster said. "They're a big part of our curriculum. So...we have to decide what to do. Students with local externships would be more or less unaffected, but we'd promised travel funding for out-of-town placements, which we can obviously no longer provide. Some of our students' families could afford to pay their travel costs, but not all of them, which creates a potential disparity."

"How many students had out of town placements?" asked Ms. Van Dyne.

"About a third of them." Dr. Foster checked her notes. "Seventy-two students."

"Could we just find local placements for them? I mean, it's New York City, there should be plenty of opportunities here," Mr. Lang said.

"It's a very short timeline. I'd hate to propose this if we didn't have opportunities lined up in advance," Dr. Foster said.

Bruce sighed, thinking of Shuri and her NASA externship. "I...might have some connections I could contact."

Dr. Foster turned her eye on him. "Really? Who?"

"Uh...let me just check and get back to you, I don't want to over-commit." Bruce wrapped his hands around his mug and looked down at the table nervously. It was too much to say he had "connections" when really what he had was a shitty bicycle and a business card given in pity. He just wanted to be helpful.

"Yeah, I might know someone who could take in a few students," Ms. Van Dyne said, and a few other teachers murmured their agreement.

"Okay. Well, if everyone could look into that and get back to me ASAP, I'd appreciate it. But I think if we can't line up alternates, we'll just have to call off the program for this semester." Dr. Foster checked the time. "Well, that wraps up our time. Thanks again for everything you all do for our students. Um, and there's plenty of doughnuts left, so I'll leave them out in the teachers' lounge. Just some extra sugar to get you through to the weekend."

Bruce snagged a glazed doughnut as his prize for surviving the meeting and went back to his classroom, where he finished setting up the paperclips for his electromagnetism demonstration. His morning classes all went according to plan, and at lunch, he took a moment to dig through his wallet. He pulled out Tony Stark's card, slightly warped from the rain but still legible. He wasn't sure why he'd kept it--he'd been unable to imagine ever calling _Tony Stark_ for a casual chat, surely the man was too busy for a nobody like Bruce. He was probably still too busy, but--Tony seemed like a good person, maybe he'd want to help Bruce's students. He'd saved Bruce from the rain, after all. And if any company could absorb 72 unexpected interns, it would be Stark Industries, right?

He spent his lunch break obsessively drafting an email. He finally settled on:

_**Subject: Thanks again!** _

_Tony,_

_Hi again, it's Bruce from IHA. Hope you don't mind hearing from me again. I have kind of a crazy request for you. It's very last-minute, and I'm sure you must get these kinds of questions all the time. I completely understand if you can't help, but I just thought I'd ask, on behalf of my students._

_IHA has an externship program for all of our seniors, where they get weeklong placements in fields that interest them over fall break and spring break. Students really look forward to it, and it's a great way for them to test out their interests and plan for the futures. Until recently, this program had funding to pay for travel expenses for students, but the new Schools Chancellor cut our budget unexpectedly on very short notice. Now, we are faced with the decision of asking students to pay their own way--which is unfair on such short notice and would leave out or place undue burden on our students from low-income families--or to cancel the fall externships entirely, which is unfair to all of our students, who have worked so hard and waited so patiently for these opportunities._

_But if we could somehow find local placements for the 72 students who had out-of-town externships, then the travel costs would be covered by their student Metrocards, and all of our students could have these valuable opportunities._

_Would you happen to have a lead on a place in New York City where 72 bright, talented high school seniors could spend one week learning about career opportunities?_

_If so, I'd happily trade you some more Oreos for your help._

_If not, again, no worries, I completely understand that this is a big ask on very short notice, but I just thought I'd give it a shot, for my students' sake._

_Either way, see you at the inter-city academic decathlon tournament next Saturday!_

_Best,_

_Bruce Banner_

_PS: Hope you're doing well! I, fortunately, remain pneumonia-free after you so kindly rescued me from the rain the other night._

He'd agonized over how casual he could be in tone, and whether Tony would even remember him. But, if Tony didn't remember him, he could just delete the email, and hopefully continue to not remember Bruce when they crossed paths next weekend at the inter-city tournament. Bruce sometimes found it helpful to prepare himself for worst case scenarios; even the worst cases tended to be survivable, assuming a person couldn't actually die of embarassment.

It had taken Bruce 45 full minutes to send that email; it took Tony thirty seconds to fire off a 2-line response:

_Sure, happy to help. Call my assistant Pepper, she'll take care of everything._

_\-- TS_

Terse, but potentially very helpful. Bruce responded with a quick note of thanks and gave Pepper a call after school. She was warm, professional, and incredibly efficient, and once it was clear that SI could in fact easily accommodate hundreds of externships if needed, Bruce gratefully put her in touch with Dr. Foster to figure out the details. His last step before he went home for the weekend was to go online and have flowers sent to Pepper and a Peapod delivery of Oreos sent to Tony.

Just as he was leaving, Dr. Foster dropped by his classroom. "Wow, when you said you had connections, you weren't kidding around. Your friend Pepper is such a lifesaver."

"Yeah, I'm glad she could help."

"I mean, seriously, above and beyond. Stark Industries has so many subsidies that all the students who lost their externships got a local placement somewhere in their top choice field. I'm so excited that we get to keep the program running."

"Me too."

"You're a real asset to IHA, Dr. Banner. Are you coming to teacher happy hour today?"

"Oh, no, I have to, um, I have a thing."

"...Okay, well, hope you can join us one of these weeks!"

Bruce again weighed the pros and cons of telling her that he didn't drink. On one hand, she'd almost certainly stop inviting him out. On the other, as a first-year teacher at this prestigious school, he thought it might be better to be seen as anti-social than as an alcoholic. Besides, experience had taught him that after a few more refusals, she'd quit asking anyway, without Bruce having to put his personal trauma out on display.

He smiled and said, "Thanks, have a great weekend!"

Bruce biked home, all the makings of a pleasant weekend ahead of him: the weather was pleasant, Thor was out of town all weekend for a CrossFit retreat so he had the apartment to himself, and his library hold on the new Stephen Hawking biography had come in.

He had a pretty good 24 hours, but Saturday night he woke up in a cold sweat. He thought he'd grown out of his nightmares, but since he'd gotten back from Colombia they'd started resurfacing again. They weren't graphic; just variations on the theme of knowing that his father was waiting for him. Sometimes he had to hide, perfectly silent; sometimes he had to run; sometimes escape was impossible. Tonight had been one of the latter, and he didn't want to go back to sleep.

Bruce padded out to the living room, where he turned on an old episode of Star Trek for background noise and started to work on some grading. After 2 AM, he went online to log the grades. Then he checked his work email, out of habit. There was nothing pressing, but he caught up on the recent messages from the academic decathlon coach listserv.

Drunk texting wasn't ever a problem for Bruce, but sleep-deprived emails could be. But he thought about it carefully and didn't see anything wrong with forwarding a particularly useful practice packet to Tony, who was, after all, new to academic decathlon and probably didn't know about the email listserv. Tony was undoubtedly out doing something fun, but he could read the email later, and perhaps would find it helpful.

_**Subject: FWD: World Cultures Practice Packet** _

_Tony,_

_Thanks again for your help with the externship. You and Ms. Potts are real lifesavers! Anyway, it occurred to me that if this is your first season coaching, maybe you don't know about the local listserv? It can be a bit much sometimes, but there are often useful materials shared, like this practice packet._

_Hope you find it helpful!_

_Best,_

_Bruce Banner  
_

A reply came almost immediately:

_Bruce,_

_Are you working on academic decathlon stuff at 2 AM on a Saturday? No wonder your team is so good._

_TS_

_PS: Thanks for the information and the Oreos. These will definitely mold my team into champions, if I don’t eat them all myself. The Oreos. I won't eat the information.  
_

Feeling bold, Bruce replied:

_Tony,_

_Hey, I didn't choose the glamorous life of a high school academic decathlon coach, it chose me. Just catching up on my grading. Why are_ you _checking your emails at 2 AM on a Saturday?_

_BB  
_

* * *

_Just catching up on my phone while I wait for coat check at the club, obviously._

_TS  
_

Bruce sighed and turned his attention back to Star Trek. That made sense. But then his inbox pinged again, almost immediately:

_Just kidding. I've had my head down over a prototype engine for the last twelve hours, just came up for air. The glamorous life of an engineer, etc etc etc. I really do appreciate the info, hope you don't get in trouble for being in bed with the enemy, so to speak._

_TS_

_PS: Seriously, your hot boyfriend isn't keeping you busy?  
_

Bruce blinked before responding:

_Hot boyfriend??? Do you have me confused with someone else? It's Bruce, from academic decathlon. Dorky tie, shitty bicycle, very single?  
_

Bruce helpfully appended his full signature block to this reply.

_No, of course I remember, you’re the one with the cute floppy hair and the Greek god who helped you carry your bike the other night? Sorry, I just assumed. [blushing emoji]_

_Also very single,_

_TS  
_

Bruce touched his hair self-consciously before replying. It was definitely floppy. Was it cute? Was Tony making fun of him? And in what world would someone like _Thor_ date someone like _Bruce_?

_Ha! Norse god, actually--he's my roommate. He does CrossFit so he's always looking for an opportunity to lift heavy objects. Very flattered that you'd think he's in my league, though ;)_

_BB  
_

* * *

_Hey, these days nerds are cooler than jocks. You're out of_ his _league._

_TS  
_

Bruce really didn't want Tony to have the wrong idea, that Bruce was pining for Thor or anything, so he replied:

_Too bad I prefer nerds._

_BB_

* * *

_You like nerds, huh? Did I mention I'm alone in my workshop at 2 AM on a Saturday night? Very nerdy of me, right?_

_Yours in Science,_

_TS_

Bruce laughed, then re-read the email, then re-read the entire email exchange. Was...Tony Stark...flirting with him? Surely not. But...then what was he doing, exactly? He wished he could run this exchange by Betty or even Thor, but he couldn't expect them to be free at, well, now almost 3 AM. But he was in no way prepared to deal with this on his own. He read the emails again and concluded that Tony was probably just teasing him. Did he _want_ Tony to be flirting with him?

He thought about closing his laptop and trying to go back to sleep, but that seemed rude, on the off-chance that Tony _wasn’t_ teasing. He already felt rude--he and Tony had been emailing back and forth so quickly, they'd basically been chatting. Now minutes had dragged by while Bruce panicked. 

Finally, he hit reply and sent a simple: _:)_

He waited for a reply to his paltry offering. When none came within five minutes, he shut down his laptop, relieved and disappointed all at once. Eventually, he fell asleep on the couch to the sweet sounds of Star Trek.

In the morning, he had an email from Tony, timestamped 5:23 AM:

_Bruce,_

_Sorry if I said anything inappropriate last night. Alcohol + email can be a bad combo. (Probably still better than alcohol + blow torch, though.)_

_See you at the tournament next weekend._

_Yours in sober professionalism,_

_TS_

Ah, so Tony had been drunk. That would also explain those emails. Bruce exhaled and stopped drafting emergency texts to Betty. Of course Tony wouldn’t be interested in Bruce, not in the sober light of morning. He thought about how best to respond and finally decided that no reply was necessary. Tony seemed embarrassed, and it would be best for them both to just move on.

Bruce closed his laptop and set off for a long bike ride through Central Park. It was still early enough that he’d beat most of the tourists, and the exercise would help clear his thoughts. He had a lovely bike ride, caught up on his podcasts, and stopped at the farmers market on his way home. 

When Thor returned, Bruce was in the kitchen, listening to Radiolab and chopping vegetables for his weekly meal prep. He found it helpful to keep to routines like this.

Thor said, "Bruce! What are you making? It smells delicious!" Thor was always quick to offer compliments on Bruce's cooking even when, for example, he had only cut raw vegetables and there was nothing in particular to smell.

Bruce paused the podcast and said, "Hey, Thor. It's just raw vegetables right now, but some of it's going to be salads, and the rest will go into a curried lentil soup."

"How healthful!"

"Um, yes. How was your weekend?"

"Excellent! I achieved a new PR for my max back squat!"

"Oh, congratulations!" Bruce tried to listen whenever Thor told him about CrossFit, which was often. There were so many different things to keep track of that Thor seemed to set a new personal record for something or other pretty much every day. Still, Thor seemed excited about each PR so Bruce attempted to share in that excitement.

"Thank you! What about you?"

"Uh, no progress on my back squats," Bruce said lightly.

Thor laughed. "But how was your weekend? Did you leave the apartment at all?"

"Yes," Bruce said defensively. He knew Thor meant well, but sometimes he got tired of Thor acting like Bruce was a total recluse, just because he wasn't a mutant hybrid social butterfly-gym rat. "I went for a nice bike ride."

"Did you talk to anyone?"

"The woman at the farmers market." Under Thor's unimpressed glance, Bruce added, "And I emailed back and forth with one of the new academic decathlon coaches for awhile. It's his first year coaching so I gave him some pointers."

"Ah! Excellent, that is very generous of you. You should invite him to pub trivia this week!"

"I, uh, sure, that's a good idea." Bruce couldn't imagine Tony Stark at their little neighborhood bar, any more than he could imagine himself breaking a record for back squats. 

"I will text you the details!" Thor opened the fridge and took a swig directly from his bottle of chocolate milk. "Tell me, do you believe you will have any extra lentil soup to share?"

"Of course." Bruce had made it a practice to always prepare a few extra servings of whatever he was cooking; Thor's effusive compliments were worth the increase in Bruce's food budget.

Thor clapped Bruce on the back so hard, it made Bruce cough. "Ah! Apologies! How terrible of me to injure such a fine chef!"

"No worries," Bruce managed. He didn't generally mind Thor's vigorous physical friendliness, though sometimes he forgot his own strength, like an overgrown puppy who'd been training for the Iditarod. "The soup should be done around seven."

"Then I shall see you at seven!" 

As promised, Thor returned for soup. Bruce thought about showing Tony's emails to Thor and asking for help decoding them, but he decided against it. It would be weird for Thor to know that Tony had thought the two of them were dating, and anyway, Bruce wasn't entirely sure that Thor would be able to understand where Tony was coming from. Occam's Razor said the simplest explanation was most likely to be true, and in this case, the simplest explanation was to accept Tony's statement that he'd been drunk and none of it had meant anything.

Bruce was able to do that for the rest of the week, until Saturday morning, when he set foot in the Brooklyn Latin School gym and caught sight of Tony Stark looking sharp in a black suit. _Fuck, he was really handsome._ Bruce gave him an awkward little wave. Tony smiled-- _ugh, what a good smile_ \--and waved back. Bruce got in line to check in his team and collected the schedule for the day. They'd be playing Midtown in the day's third match, just before their lunch break.

By the time he'd gotten his team rounded back up, he'd lost sight of Tony, which was probably for the best. The IHA team easily defeated St. Ignatius in their first round, though they struggled slightly against the hosting team, Brooklyn Latin. Still, thanks mostly to Shuri, they managed another win and were 2-0 when they went into their match against Midtown.

Before the match, Tony came up to Bruce and extended a hand. "Hey, I just wanted to introduce myself, I'm Tony and I'm a huge fan of yours," he said, inverting their original introduction with a charming smile.

Bruce laughed, relieved that Tony wasn't going to make things weird after their email exchange, and shook his hand. "Good to see you, Tony. How's your morning going?"

"Not too bad! We're 1-1 right now, though I'm pretty sure that's about to become 1-2."

"Hey, don't give up before we even get started."

"You're right. We've had a week of great practices, thanks to some clutch advice I got from some nerd." Tony actually winked at Bruce, and Bruce had to fight to keep his expression neutral. Tony really was almost overwhelmingly attractive. He'd made a point of telling Bruce that he was single, but surely that must be by choice, not for lack of offers.

Bruce thought his voice was steady as he said, "Oh, good. Nerds can be so useful."

"I've always said that."

"Anyway, uh, I think the match is about to get started, so I'm going to…" Bruce gestured vaguely over at his team. "But good luck to you!"

"You, too!"

After IHA won, 350-135, Tony came up to Bruce with a sigh and adorable puppy-dog eyes. "Good game, if you're into that kind of thing."

Bruce smiled. "Thanks. Yeah, I kinda am. You guys did great, though. A lot of improvement. Uh, does your team have a lunch break now?"

"I don't know." 

Bruce pulled out his schedule and traced his finger across Midtown's column. "Yeah, looks like you do. Let's head to the cafeteria before our students resort to cannibalism."

"Cafeteria?" Tony asked, dismay evident in his face.

"Yeah, there's not really time for anything else."

"I'll go ahead and assume the cafeteria doesn't have a bar."

Bruce wasn't sure if Tony had a drinking problem or just an inappropriate sense of humor. He offered a tentative smile and said, "There's probably a vending machine...maybe a coffee maker in the teachers' lounge if we can get one of the host teachers to take pity on us."

Tony grimaced. "Very well. Lead the way."

Bruce went to gather his team. "Great job, again, guys. I'm really proud of you."

"Mm-hmm, hey, so, Dr. Banner, are you flirting with the enemy?" Darcy whispered loudly.

"I'm not _flirting_ and the Midtown coach isn't our _enemy_. I'm just making sure Mr. Stark knows the ropes, it's his first year coaching and I want to keep the playing field level."

"Wait, is that how you got our externship placements?" Darcy asked, her eyes aglow with interest in perceived gossip.

"It--how did you even hear about that?" Bruce asked.

"Oh, people tell me things," Darcy said vaguely.

"I'm just glad we get a real coach, and not someone who was court-ordered to be here," Nebula sniffed.

Keeping his voice low, Bruce said, "Okay, that's harsh, Nebula, I'm sure we don't know the full story. And after Midtown's budget cuts, they wouldn't be able to compete if they didn't have a volunteer coach, so they're lucky to have him."

"MJ says he does not understand the rules of academic decathlon. She says he keeps getting it confused with Jeopardy," Shuri said.

"Well, nobody's perfect," Bruce said. "And let's remember that we're in a small community--people can hear us when we talk."

"Good," Darcy said. "Mr. Stark _should_ hear--"

"Darcy--" Bruce forced himself to take a deep breath. It was usually easier than this for him to keep his temper under control. "Let's just go to lunch, okay? I don't want them to run out of cheese pizza while we're lollygagging."

" _Lollygagging,_ " Darcy repeated incredulously.

Bruce shook his head and just started walking. Fortunately for his mood, he was able to snag a couple of slices of cheese pizza and a long table for himself and his team. Perhaps unfortunately, the Midtown team squeezed in next to them, with Tony placing himself right next to Bruce.

"What monster designed these tables?" Tony grumbled.

Trying to politely scoot away from Tony so their thighs didn't touch, Bruce said, "I don't know, but they must have done it before we went to high school. Probably before our grandparents went to high school."

Tony turned a side-eye on Bruce, and it occurred to Bruce that Tony, sole heir of Stark Industries, must have gone to fancy private schools. "Seriously?" Tony asked. "You had to sit in tables like this?" He slid closer to Bruce again.

Bruce kept very still and replied, "Every school day of my life, until college."

"Seems inhumane."

Midtown's captain Michelle raised her eyebrows. "What did you sit on? Solid ivory thrones?"

"No! Just...chairs," Tony said. "Normal, wooden chairs."

"Your school had wooden chairs? Everywhere?" Bruce asked. He knew how much the industrial grade plastic ones cost; they were already an investment for a public school budget.

"Okay, you know what, never mind, this isn't about me. But just...there must be a better way, right? It's so awkward to get in and out of these, and must be a real pickle for kids with disabilities."

"It is," Gamora said, looking at Nebula, whose wheelchair was pressed awkwardly up at the end of the table, like the godfather of the cafeteria.

Bucky shrugged, his mouth full of pizza.

Tony pulled out his phone and made a note, accompanied by a quick fingertip sketch of the table.

Bruce said, "I mean, there are certainly better table options out there, it's just that most schools bought these tables forever ago and can't afford to replace them. Besides, these are easier to store."

"Ah, so it's a problem that can be solved by throwing some money at it! Good to know," Tony mumbled. "Still, though, good to know there are other tables available...it's hard to imagine any of them are worse than these."

Bruce smiled. There was definitely something charming about Tony's enthusiasm, even if his subject of focus was a bit odd. One of the boys from Midtown said, "Do you want to come eat lunch with us in our cafetorium sometime, Mr. Stark? We have these tables but also some round ones, but like, people usually have dibs on those, but probably they would let you sit at one, because you're Tony Stark and all."

"I...sure, Peter," Tony said.

"Cool so on A-block days I have lunch at 11:45 but on B-block days it's 12:05, and--"

"--I'll talk to you about it at practice next week, okay?" Tony said, firmly but kindly.

"Okay, awesome."

Bruce watched as the boy attempted to discreetly high five his friend under the table. It was cute that Tony had his fans. Another kid--Flash, Bruce remembered, because it was hard to forget a name like Flash--coughed " _Suck up_."

Tony rolled his eyes, and the general lunchtime chatter continued. The kids mostly talked amongst themselves, but Tony had lots of questions for Bruce about public school life. He seemed genuinely interested in the most basic facts of Bruce's life. It was weird, but perhaps a little flattering? But maybe Bruce was just the first poor person Tony had ever talked to. 

Finally, it came time to scrape themselves out of the long benches--Tony was right, these tables _were_ awkward, especially for adults--and move on to their afternoon matches--all of which they uneventfully won. 

On their way to the awards ceremony, Darcy whispered, "Hey, Dr. B., I just want to say that I think you should totally let Mr. Stark take you out."

"This is not appropriate, Darcy."

"I agree with Darcy," Shuri said.

"Still not appropriate, thank you, Shuri."

Darcy persisted, "I'm just saying, you could do worse than a billionaire who's clearly super into you. Even if his business is failing, he's probably still at least a millionaire."

Bruce shook his head and rolled his eyes. He wished he knew half as much as teenagers thought they knew.

Yet after awards were distributed--a first place trophy for IHA, of course, but also a top individual scorer medal for Shuri, as well as for Michelle from the Midtown team--Tony reappeared at Bruce's side. Darcy raised her eyebrows pointedly and leaned against a locker to eavesdrop. Shuri joined her, a huge smile on her face.

"Hey, just wanted to congratulate the champions," Tony said, with an easy smile.

Bruce glanced around for any sign of Tony's team, but they'd already vanished, like Bruce wished his nosy team would. "Thanks. Congratulations to Michelle, she's a great team captain."

"Yeah, she really knows her stuff. What are you up to now?"

"Uh...just gonna head home, probably do some grading."

"You wanna grab a drink first?"

"Ah...no thanks," Bruce said. 

Tony nodded. "I get it. If you don't get started on grading now, you'll have to stay up until what, 4, 5 AM to finish?"

"It's not--it's just--I, um, don't drink," Bruce admitted quietly. Even if Bruce didn't want to believe the rumor about his DUI, Tony certainly did seem to drink a lot, and it was probably for the best that Bruce get that information about himself out there eventually.

"Oh! You mean you don't drink alcohol, or you don't consume liquids of any kind?"

Bruce smiled. "The former."

"Okay, I can work with that," Tony mused. "Coffee?"

"Is a liquid, yes." Behind Tony, Darcy and Shuri were losing their fucking minds. Bruce licked his lips and lowered his voice further. "Hey--uh, some kids on my team are--well, I'd just rather keep my personal life separate from my work life."

"Ah. Understood. Well, see you around, then." Tony nodded and turned to walk away. Shuri and Darcy immediately composed their faces as Tony walked past them.

Bruce sighed. That hadn't been what he'd meant, but it had sort of worked. "Boo, Dr. B.," Darcy said.

He shook his head. " _Inappropriate_ , Darcy." He cleared his throat and spoke up louder. "Everyone knows how they're getting home, right?"

"Yes," his team chorused. 

"Okay. Be safe and have a good weekend, okay? Great job today, really. You're all awesome. I'll see you at practice on Tuesday."

Bruce followed the kids out to the street and unlocked his bicycle. He'd half-hoped that Tony would be waiting there, but obviously Tony had better things to do. He briefly thought about sending Tony a message to ask about getting coffee on Sunday, but he decided he was better off letting it go. He'd probably just embarrass himself, even without the kids surrounding him.

He spent the rest of the weekend in a terrible mood; his students were going to notice that his grading had suddenly gotten much stricter. He consoled himself with the idea that he'd come up with some extra credit opportunities when he was feeling better. But then he got a text message about an emergency all-staff meeting on Monday at 6:30 AM and suspected that it might be awhile before he was in an extra credit mood again.

Dr. Foster's face was grim at their morning meeting, and Bruce was pretty sure it wasn't only due to the lack of doughnuts. Bruce and his fellow teachers sat at the conference table, anxiously murmuring speculation to each other about what this meeting could possibly be about. None of their ideas were good.

Once Dr. Foster had taken attendance and confirmed that everyone was there, she took a deep breath. "Good morning. I really appreciate you all coming in on such short notice...look, I don't think there's an easy way for me to say this, so...well, the good news is, IHA will remain open, and all of your jobs are safe."

Everyone exhaled sharply, and Dr. Foster continued. "But...there have been severe budget cuts around the city. A lot of school closures. In fact, um, 50% of all of New York public schools will be closed by the end of fall semester."

The room erupted into chaos until Dr. Foster held up her hand for silence. "I know. I know. I...it's hard to conceptualize. Plans are obviously still tentative, but it appears that, as the nearest STEM magnet school remaining open, IHA will absorb the student body of Midtown School of Science and Technology."

Ms. Van Dyne raised her hand. "And their teachers?"

Dr. Foster shook her head mutely. "No, ah...well, obviously I, and all the other principals, will fight as hard as we can for our teachers, but, ah...it does seem likely that we'll all have...a significant increase in class size. I'm not exactly sure what that will mean for everyone, and we really will work hard to maintain the quality of education for all of our students. I...I don't have a lot of other information right now, but I wanted you all to hear it from me first. I will keep you updated as I hear anything."

Dr. Cho, their union rep, said, "Why hasn't the union been brought to the table with this?"

"The union will absolutely be included going forward, but Mr. Thanos has apparently invoked an archaic state of emergency clause that allows him to override a lot of usual protocol."

Mr. Lang raised his hand. "What should we tell the students?"

Dr. Foster sighed. "For now, nothing. I imagine it will be in the news soon enough, and we'll hold an assembly to explain. I'd rather wait until I have more information to give."

Bruce raised his hand. "I assume this will affect extracurricular activities?"

Dr. Foster nodded. "I have to assume you are correct, Dr. Banner."

Bruce swallowed. This wasn't quite the worst case scenario, but it wasn't great. On the bright side, it seemed like he'd definitely have the chance to have that cup of coffee with Tony Stark soon. He just hoped that Tony would still be friendly after Bruce's awkward rebuff, because things were about to get extremely uncomfortable for two academic decathlon teams if he wasn't.


	4. You Get What You Give

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof, this is a long chapter! That's what I get for trying to have feelings _and_ plot. I hope you enjoy it! If you don't, please don't tell me! It'll hurt my feelings! Thanks!

Tony proudly looked around the empty classroom. He'd managed to get checked in at the front office, find his way to the academic decathlon practice room, pull up his practice packet, and set up the buzzers, all before the students got there. No slinking in late today! He'd even remembered to bring Oreos for them. He felt like he was finally getting the hang of this coaching thing.

But minutes ticked by and he was still alone in the classroom. He checked his calendar; it was definitely Monday, and they definitely had practice scheduled. He texted Pepper to confirm.

She replied, _Oops! You'd better go talk to Nat…_

Tony frowned at his phone. What did that mean? Did they have practice or not? Why was Tony being sent to the principal's office? Did he have detention? He was pretty sure Nat wasn't allowed to give him detention.

While he was puzzling over that, Peter and Ned came in. "Oh, hey, Mr. Stark!" Peter said.

"We saw you through the door," Ned explained.

"Where is everyone? Don't we have practice today?"

Peter's eyes widened. "Oh man, nobody told you?"

"Nobody told me _what_?"

"Our school's closing," Ned said glumly. "We're all getting transferred to IHA after winter break."

"What? All of you? Is there asbestos or something?" Tony looked up at the ceiling with concern, while his brain took an extra second to translate "IHA" into "Bruce's school."

"No, I guess it's like, a budget thing?" Peter said. 

"Well, but the school's still open now, right? Don't we have another tournament in a couple of weeks? Before break?" Tony looked at his calendar again.

"MJ says it's all pointless now, since we won't be able to play anymore at IHA," Peter explained.

"Why not? Can't you just join their team? I'm sure Br--Dr. Banner would let you."

"Uh, I don't know if you noticed, but their team is way better than our team," Ned said. "We'll be the C-string. The D-string, even. We'll never get to play."

"It's going to be so embarassing," Peter moaned.

"Well--I don't buy that," Tony said. "I mean, yes, it's true that their team is...very good. And their captain is, well, she's a lot to take on. But you guys are really smart! And you work really hard. I'm sure their coach will reward that. He seems like a...a nice guy."

Peter and Ned were both looking at Tony like he'd grown another head. "You really think we're smart?" Peter asked in a small voice.

"What? Of course!"

"It's just you always kind of act like you hate us," Ned said.

"I mean, I get it," Peter said quickly. "I know you have lots of better things to do than deal with us, especially when we're not even that good of a team."

"Oh god," Tony muttered. "Hey, I'm sorry, I just--well, I guess I never got that much positive reinforcement when I was a kid, and then I didn't really get any training for this coaching thing, and I just--I'm sorry. You guys deserve better than that. And you shouldn't quit academic decathlon."

"Nice speech, Mr. Stark," came Nat's husky voice from the doorway.

Tony looked up. "Oh, hey, Nat." Peter and Ned were now looking at Tony as if he'd grown seven heads and one of them had eaten a student. Nat was looking at Tony as if she'd like to murder him with her bare hands, and Tony realized his error. He had such a hard time remembering not to call adults by their first names at school; it seemed like such an arbitrary rule. Surely the kids all _knew_ they had first names, right? He cleared his throat and added, "Oh, uh, Ms. Romanoff, I mean. Hello."

"It's _Dr._ Romanoff," she said. "Peter, Ned, can you give us the room? I need to talk to Mr. Stark."

"Yes ma'am, of course," Peter squeaked.

"Wait, take these," Tony said, holding out the package of cookies. 

Ned grabbed it. "Thanks, Mr. Stark. Ooh, nice, the Halloween ones! They taste better because they're orange."

Tony added, "And tell Michelle not to be such a quitter!"

"...No way, I'm not saying that to MJ," Ned said. Peter shook his head emphatically.

Tony sighed. "Fine, I'll email her. See you around, guys."

"You should come to lunch with us! Before our school closes," Peter blurted out. "I mean, if you're free…"

Nat tapped her scarlet fingernails on the desk.

Peter said, "You know what, I'll email you, bye!" He and Ned left.

Nat, still standing, said, "So, Mr. Stark, how has your community service at Midtown been?"

"Um, really...engaging," Tony said weakly. "Sorry, what's this about the school closing?"

Nat shrugged. "That's pretty much it. The school is closing over winter break and our student body will be transferred to Infinite Horizons Academy."

"I don't...that seems like very short notice?"

"Apparently our new chancellor of schools has been very determined to balance the budget, and he's willing to take drastic measures to do so."

"What will you do?"

"I'll...figure something out," Nat said. 

"If you need a job, I'm sure SI--"

"--I'll be fine, thanks, Tony," Nat said curtly. "That's not your concern right now. I wanted to check in about your community service hours. By my records, you're about halfway through with your 100-hour commitment?"

"That sounds right, yeah."

"Well, we appreciate your service, and you're welcome to finish out the semester here--although a practice that no one attends doesn't count--"

"--Hey, _two_ kids attended, you just scared them off!"

"--But I suspect you'll need to find another placement to finish up your hours."

"Can't I finish up with the team at IHA? I mean, I know they already have a coach, but maybe they'd want...an assistant coach? To help with the new students?"

"Maybe," Nat agreed. "You'd have to work that out with them directly. Your arrangement with me won't automatically transfer."

"Okay. Well, thanks for the heads up, Nat. And...and thanks again, for having me here. I really do appreciate it."

"Well, if you want to make it up to me…my birthday's in a couple of weeks."

"Right, I knew that."

"No, you didn't."

"Okay, whatever, what do you want?"

"I want you to give Pepper the weekend off."

"Of course, no problem."

" _Including_ from her email."

Tony winced, but nodded. "Fine, I'm sure I can survive a few days without Pepper. But if it turns out I can't, make sure to say nice things about me at my funeral."

"Sure, I'm a great liar," Nat responded with a straight face. "Well, good luck, Tony, I'll see you around."

She left Tony alone with his thoughts. He didn't even have the Oreos to drown his sorrows. He was pretty sure Bruce would let him stay with the team if he asked nicely, but he'd have to tell Bruce about his court-ordered community service, and he didn't want Bruce to think poorly of him. Maybe Bruce already did think poorly of him, and that's why he'd rejected Tony's offer for coffee? But Tony had been in business long enough that he could generally tell when people despised him, and _that_ wasn't the way Bruce looked at him. Not remotely. 

Perhaps Bruce had simply meant what he said about wanting to keep his personal and professional life separate; that was certainly good advice that Tony never seemed to be able to follow. So maybe he could pursue Bruce when the academic decathlon season was over? Maybe Tony should just move on and find another community service project for the rest of his hours? He was sure he could find something else to do for 50 hours.

Or maybe he could convince Matt to go back to court, to change his sentence? Time served with good behavior, or something along those lines? Tony still couldn't believe Matt had convinced him to settle like this, when Tony _knew_ he was innocent. The whole situation was so embarrassing.

He finally decided to just get it over with and ask Bruce. Even if he said no, at least Tony could tell Peter and Ned that he'd tried. 

_**Subject: Favor?** _

_Bruce,_

_Hey, I have a favor to ask of you. It's a little awkward but hey, you teach high school so you're probably used to awkward, right?_

_Anyway, you've probably heard that Midtown and IHA are getting combined next semester, including our academic decathlon teams. You've probably also already heard that my role as coach is actually part of a court-mandated community service agreement. Dr. Romanoff has been signing off on my paperwork but as of next semester obviously she won't be able to do that. I'll still need about 50 hours. Would you consider taking pity on a poor volunteer and keeping me on as your assistant coach? I promise to bring Oreos._

_I totally understand if you'd rather not, but I just thought I'd ask. I'll be sure to come cheer you guys on either way._

_TS_

A response came quickly:

_Tony,_

_I'd be happy to have you but I'll have to run it by Dr. Foster. I assume it won't be a problem if Dr. Romanoff approved it, you'll probably just have to sign another background check form for IHA. Just a formality...but I'll let you know when I hear back from Dr. Foster._

_Bruce  
_

Tony considered this as he sent off a quick "thank you" response. It was the answer he wanted, but he still felt a little on edge about it. And embarrassed about having to agree to a background check, even though most of his youthful indiscretions wouldn't actually show up on paper. 

He wished Bruce would have asked what Tony had done, so that Tony could tell him. He was sure that Bruce would agree that it really wasn't as bad as it sounded. He could just tell Bruce. He _would_. He would tell him, but not over email. He'd tell him in person, some time when there weren't any kids around. Which would require him to get Bruce to accept an invitation for socializing. He decided to let that problem simmer in the back of his mind, as he packed up the failed academic decathlon practice and returned to his workshop.

He googled himself, to see what Bruce would see if he looked Tony up. It wasn't...great. Then, out of curiosity, he googled Bruce. He found some very locked down social media profiles, some write-ups of academic decathlon tournaments from a few years ago, and Bruce's PhD thesis. Tony clicked through and skimmed it. It was really impressive and made Tony's mind spin about other potential applications of gamma radiation. He wondered why Bruce hadn't done more with this research. For that matter, why hadn't anyone else?

The next month passed by in a haze. He thought of a hundred innocuous reasons to contact Bruce and talked himself out of all of them. Bruce had said that he wanted to keep his personal and professional lives separate, and Bruce was doing Tony the favor of letting him co-coach. Or assistant coach. Something. Tony didn't want to do anything to make Bruce regret the decision to share his professional life with Tony.

So Tony went to lunch with Peter and Ned in their horrible cafetorium. He convinced Michelle to return to the team for another month of successful-ish academic decathlon practices, though team morale remained, on average, low. He made moderate progress on restoring his self-driving car prototype, but still felt stuck. There was no reason why it shouldn't work perfectly. He drank. He drank some more. And then he got an email.

**_Subject: Team Party_ ** __

_Tony,_

_Everything's all set for you to come aboard at IHA next semester :)_

_I wondered if you and your team might want to come join us for our last practice of the semester? We can make it kind of a non-denominational holiday party and just welcome all the Midtown students to the team before we start in earnest in January. What do you think? It would be next Thursday at 3, since we don't have extracurriculars during semester finals._

_Hope you've been well._

_Best,_

_Bruce_

Alone in his workshop, Tony smiled before replying:

_Bruce,_

_Thank you! You're a lifesaver._

_Team party sounds great--I'll run it by my kids on Wednesday. We've been having Monday/Wednesday practices but I assume most of them should be able to make it on Thursday. I don't think most of them have much of a life, to be honest._

_Anyway, I'll let you know._

_TS_

It turned out that Tony had underestimated how overcommitted his nerdy teens were--Midtown's marching band, robotics club (had the school had a robotics club this whole time and why wasn't Tony allowed to run _that_? Ugh, he had to work harder at getting on Nat's good side), and Model UN apparently all also met on Thursdays, but Tony managed to convince most of them to play hooky from their other commitments and attend the IHA academic decathlon party.

Tony checked in at the front office--he still struggled with the indignity of the school secretary insisting on seeing his actual photo ID--where he and his team were met by Bruce, who led them down the halls of IHA, which was obviously in much better shape than Midtown. Tony had been assuming that all public schools were shitty, but IHA looked...nice. He wondered what kind of cafeteria tables they had.

Bruce's classroom was frankly adorable. It had rainbow "Safe Space" and "Black Lives Matter" stickers on the door, and the bulletin board was covered with a mixture of nerdy science cartoons, motivational quotes, and cute pictures of dogs. Tony pried his eyes away from a dog in a lab coat and looked to the front of the room, where cookies and punch were waiting.

Tony pulled his own package of Oreos out of his messenger bag and placed them on the table next to a package of Newman-Os, where a girl with curly brown hair pounced on them. "Yes! Real Oreos! The Christmas kind with the red dye!"

"Doesn't that cause cancer?" asked Shuri.

"That was red dye 3," said the boy with the cape. "This is red dye 40, which has not been conclusively shown to be a carcinogen."

Tony fought back an eyeroll. He was trying to make a good impression, or at least an acceptable one. 

"Why don't we all introduce ourselves?" Bruce said. "We can just say our names and maybe something that we like to do besides academic decathlon, with the obvious understanding that nothing is as fun as academic decathlon." He spoke with a slightly ironic lilt to his voice. "I'll start. I'm Dr. Banner, and besides academic decathlon...my favorite thing to do is grade problem sets."

"Boo, Dr. B," called the brown-haired girl. "That doesn't count."

Bruce laughed. "I can't help it if I'm boring, Darcy. Why don't you go next?"

"Fine, I'm Darcy, obviously, and my favorite thing to do is work on my social media brand."

"Also you do model UN," said the boy with the prosthetic arm and artsy bangs.

"Also I do model UN," Darcy grudgingly admitted.

One by one, the kids introduced themselves. Tony found himself understanding Michelle's concern about the next semester--they were now a very large team, but they could still only have 5 kids play at a time. He realized that all around the city, teams of all sorts would be having this problem. He certainly wasn't an education expert, but he just didn't understand what good this massive school closure would do for anyone.

Finally, Tony said, "I'm, um, Mr. Stark, and...I mean, really, you know who I am, right?"

Darcy raised her hand. "Mr. Stark, is it true that you're here for court-ordered volunteer hours?"

"Darcy, that's not appropriate," Bruce said.

"What? I'm just _curious_ ," Darcy said. "I read online--"

"You can't believe everything you read on the internet," Bruce said firmly. Tony was so grateful for his support, though he wasn't sure what he'd done to deserve it, especially when Bruce knew that Darcy was right.

"I know, that's why I'm asking the _source_ ," Darcy said.

Sixteen pairs of eyes turned on Tony, including Bruce's sympathetic gaze. Tony had been through some rough press conferences, but this was pretty far up there in terms of discomfort. Still, he kept smiling and said, "Yes, that's true." 

Lately, Tony had been trying his best to keep his head down (metaphorically and literally) and focused on his work, rather than any news coverage about him. His time was valuable; he couldn't waste it reading every dumb blog post about himself. Since none of his students had asked about this before, he'd managed to convince himself that his PR team had successfully swept it under the rug. But of course they must have been whispering about it all along. He might as well give the truth.

"White collar crime, am I right?" Michelle asked, nodding sagely.

"I heard you hit a school bus full of kids and your lawyer covered it up," Flash said.

"I heard you crashed a flying car, but the government doesn't want us to have flying cars yet," said the kid with the cape.

Well. Tony _had_ wanted to explain himself to Bruce, but he supposed he might as well explain himself to Bruce and fifteen teenagers. "Look, I know everyone says this, but it really was not my fault, but my lawyer said it would be better for me to settle it this way instead of having a court case drag out."

"That makes sense," Darcy said thoughtfully. "Since SI's stock was already down so far."

"Um, yes, that," Tony said. These smart teens were going to be the death of him. "Anyway, I...did hit a school bus with a car. But the school bus was empty, it was the middle of the night. And...I had been drinking, but I wasn't actually driving, I would _never_ drink and drive, I was just testing a self-driving car prototype. Which honestly, I _know_ there is nothing wrong with the prototype, it must have been sabotaged somehow." 

Tony glanced around to see how this was being received. The teens mostly looked amused; Bruce looked sad. Tony chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment. Should he have come up with a better story? But the truth was better than most of what the kids had apparently heard. He hadn't hurt anyone, except himself, and it hadn't even been his fault! 

He saw that some of the kids were already on their phones. He supposed he could try to make them sign NDAs, but honestly, if they tried to blog about this, it would be better than most of the other stories out there right now. Besides, they were just kids. Who would care what they had to say?

Tony was more worried about what _Bruce_ thought. Had he already heard all those stories about Tony and been so kind to him anyway? What had he thought Tony's community service hours were for? What would he think of Tony now?

Ugh, this was why Pepper always wrote out Tony's speeches ahead of time, even if Tony often decided to ignore them in the moment he was giving them.

Then Shuri asked innocently, "Does America not have self-driving cars yet?" 

"God, I wish," Flash said.

"Hang on, who do you think sabotaged you, Mr. Stark?" Peter asked.

"Yeah, do you have a suspect? Was it Justin Hammer?" Ned asked.

"I bet it was Justin Hammer," Peter said confidently. Tony appreciated their support, but also hated the idea that that hack Justin Hammer, who'd recently had to recall a bunch of cell phones with exploding batteries, would even be good enough to sabotage Tony's prototype. Hammer's entire business model was copying Stark Industries and putting out inferior models in the next purchasing cycle. There was no way Hammer was ahead of the curve on self-driving cars.

"Why did the police not investigate this matter?" Shuri asked.

With as much dignity as he could muster, Tony said, "They did not consider my account credible."

"Maybe because it's bullshit," Flash mumbled, vaguely masked by a cough.

"What was that?" Bruce asked sharply.

"Nothing!" Flash said.

"Well, I say F the police," Michelle said. Tony turned to look at her with some surprise. Michelle was not Tony's biggest fan, but it was good to know that he outranked the police in her esteem.

"Wait, Dr. Banner, seriously, it was _inappropriate_ of me to ask a very basic question about our new coach's legal status but she gets to say 'f the police' and you're not going to say anything about it?" Darcy protested.

Bruce shrugged. "I believe in treating individuals with respect and questioning overarching power structures. Also, she self-censored appropriately for the circumstances."

"Respect," Michelle said, with an approving nod.

"That said, I know the legal drinking age is 21 so _of course_ this information doesn't apply to any of you just yet," Bruce said drily, "But when you go off to college or whatever's next after high school, keep in mind that alcohol impairs judgment and shouldn't generally be used in the lab, except as a solvent."

"Yeah, I'm a cautionary tale," Tony said. "But also, I must stress, an obvious victim of sabotage."

Bruce coughed and said, "Well--anyway--I know the circumstances for our teams joining is not ideal, but I hope we can all make the best of it. We're lucky to have Mr. Stark give us his time, and we're happy to have new students to work with. It's a big change for everyone, but I really think that if we can just remember to treat each other with empathy and respect, we'll have a great rest of the season."

Tony raised his glass of punch. "I'll drink to that!"

Bruce smiled and tapped his paper cup to Tony's. The kids shyly toasted each other, and the room filled with the sound of teens awkwardly attempting to befriend each other. Tony let Peter and Ned talk his ear off about different CSI techniques they'd like to try to crack the case of Tony's sabotaged prototype.

"Oh, hey, it's 5," Bruce said. "Go study for finals or whatever it is you do for fun."

"Yeah, it's definitely study for finals," Darcy said. "You truly have your finger on the pulse of youth culture."

"I knew it," Bruce said. "IHA students, I'll see most of you in class tomorrow, but Midtown students, it was very nice to see you again and I look forward to getting together again in January," Bruce said with a warm smile.

The students trickled out of the classroom, but Tony lingered. "Hey, uh, I just wanted to say thank you for saying that stuff," Tony said. "And for keeping me on as a volunteer."

Bruce blinked his deep hazel eyes. "Of course, Tony, I meant it. I think people deserve second chances." He produced a ridiculously charming lopsided grin and added, "That's why I always throw out my students' lowest test scores every semester. People shouldn't be defined by their worst days."

Something cracked open inside Tony's chest, beneath his mended ribs. He hadn't realized how badly he'd needed to hear that until Bruce had said it. "Well...thank you for that. Oh, and I meant to ask, would you want to come to the SI annual holiday party?"

"Oh, no thanks, Tony, I'm not really one for...parties. School functions aside."

"No, I mean, I remember you don't drink, but this is a family-friendly affair. With great mocktails! And vegetarian options!" Bruce still looked skeptical, and Tony said, "Well, if I send you the details, would you please think about it? I'd love to see you there."

"I'll think about it," Bruce agreed. "And I'll see you in January for practice."

"Or...later in December...for party? It'll be extremely...professional," Tony said. "Like a school function! But more fun!" He'd been trying so hard to respect Bruce's boundaries, but now that Tony was looking right at Bruce's cute face, Tony really didn't want to wait a whole month to see him again. Tony had been so lonely lately, but Bruce really did seem to see Tony as a person, not just an irresponsible CEO to be controlled or a wealthy person to dispense favors. Tony wanted a chance to get to know Bruce, to let him get to know Tony. 

"I'll think about it," Bruce repeated, apparently determined to play hard to get, despite the hint of a smile playing on his lips. 

"Great!" Tony said. He hefted his bag over his shoulder and said, "Well...have a good night."

"Thanks, you too. Do you remember how to get back to the front office? I know this school's kind of a maze."

"I'm sure I can find it," Tony said. He didn't want to bother Bruce any more than he already had.

"Okay. Well...see you around." Bruce busied himself at his desk, and Tony wandered the halls of IHA until a starstruck student led him back to the front door in exchange for a selfie.

Once he got home, he sent the SI holiday party e-vite to Bruce. Hours later, Bruce sent a mysterious reply:

_Would it be okay if I brought Thor?_

Tony laughed. 

_Sure, bring as many gods as you want. It's a non-denominational holiday party, after all._

_TS_

* * *

_Oh, sorry, Thor's my roommate's name, I forgot you didn't actually meet him. He's from Norway, apparently it's not that weird of a name there. Anyway, he's always on my case about me not leaving the house so something like this might get him off my back for awhile. (So to speak, we're still not dating.)_

_Bruce (American god of awkwardness)_

* * *

_[crying laughing emoji]_

_Yes, please bring Thor. Does that mean you're coming?_

_TS  
_

* * *

_We'll make an appearance._

_Thanks,_

_Bruce_

Thanks to Pepper and her party-planning prowess, the SI holiday party was flawless--the ballroom was tastefully decorated, the band was lovely, there was a creepy Olaf snowman to distribute gifts to kids, and the catering was top-notch. He'd heard that the board wanted them to cut back on the party this year, given the blip in SI's stock value, but Tony loved the annual party and refused to compromise. He wanted his employees to relax and have a great time.

Tony was having a terrible time.

Pepper and Nat were dancing, Rhodey and Carol were dancing, and Tony was left to feign interest in extremely boring investors. He really was trying to be on his best behavior, hoping to gain the trust of the board after his accident--no easy feat, given they'd never really liked him in the first place. But his attention span was severely waning. He wondered when Bruce would come. He'd said that he would, after all. 

Tony discreetly looked around the room and saw the back of a familiar floppy-haired head...leaving the ballroom. He abruptly excused himself from the terrible conversation he was having about the ski slopes of Sokovia and headed briskly in Bruce's direction, smoothly deflecting interruptions on his way. Tony managed to catch up to Bruce waiting for the elevator.

"Bruce! Hey, glad you could make it. Are you really leaving already?"

Bruce twisted his hands together nervously. He was wearing worn maroon corduroy pants and a soft green sweater under a puffy black jacket; he looked adorable, aside from the painful aura of anxiety he was radiating. Tony had wondered if Bruce was playing hard to get, but it didn't seem like Bruce was playing at all; he simply _was_ hard to get. But Tony didn't mind putting in some effort, not for a worthwhile endeavor like this one.

Bruce stammered, "I, um, sorry. Thanks for inviting me but this, um, it really isn't my scene."

"Where's your Norse god?"

Bruce sighed. "I introduced him to Jane Foster and they've been dancing together for the last half hour."

"Ah! I didn't see her come in either." Tony had been hoping to curry favor with the principal of his next volunteer placement by inviting her. He hoped that this evening would end well for all of them--Jane, Thor, Tony, and Bruce. But mostly for him and Bruce.

"I'm sure it's hard to be the man of the hour," Bruce said softly.

"It's kind of boring, to be honest. Want to come up and see my workshop? I bet _that's_ your scene."

Bruce tilted his head curiously. "Don't you have to stay at your party?"

"It's my party and I'll leave if I want to, leave if I want to."

Bruce laughed and Tony said, "Seriously, I already did all my photo ops and everything, I'm a free man. C'mon, you'll love it, I've got some really cutting edge stuff. You're on winter break, you don't have any grading to do. You can stay out a little longer tonight, can't you? It'll be educational!"

Bruce gave Tony the kind of sweet, shy look that would keep Tony's romantic hopes alive for another day, even if Bruce got in the elevator and left right now. But Bruce didn't leave; he bit his full lower lip and said, "Well...sure." 

"Great! And hey, I'll give you a ride home if your bicycle freezes solid."

"Thanks...but actually Thor and I took the subway."

"Even more reason for me to give you a ride," Tony replied, with a delicate shudder at the thought of the subway. "Did you get enough to eat at the party?" 

"Yeah, thanks. You were right--great vegetarian options."

"Well, I've got snacks upstairs if you didn't. Just say the word." Tony put an arm around Bruce's shoulders and led him into the elevator upstairs, where he happily showed off his high-tech equipment and designs. Bruce took off his jacket and settled in. He soaked up Tony's tour with interest; his obvious anxiety seemed to have faded away, and he asked smart, engaged questions about all of it. He wanted to know more about how things worked: what they would do for people, not how much their profit margin would be for the company. After Tony finished his tour, he paused in front of a holographic display of his self-driving car prototype and said, "Hey, can I ask you a question?"

"Besides the one you just asked? Sure," Bruce replied with a wry smile.

"It's just that I did a little poking around online...I've seen your research on gamma radiation, from your PhD thesis. It was really groundbreaking stuff."

"What's your question?" Bruce asked stiffly, his smile gone. 

Tony spoke quickly, hoping he hadn't lost Bruce altogether. He was obviously on shaky ground, but he was just so curious. "Well, not that teaching high school isn't a noble calling and all, but I guess I just wondered why you're doing this, instead of...I mean, with research of that caliber, you could have gotten a tenured professorship anywhere, or a job at pretty much any lab in the world. SI for sure would have hired you--still would, if you're ever interested."

Bruce wrapped his arms around his torso and looked down at the ground. Tony sighed. "I'm sorry. I didn't--I didn't mean to ask a rude question. I'm just curious to a fault."

Bruce gave a faint smile. "Well, I always tell my students that curiosity is the most important trait for scientists to have. It's fine, it's just--this isn't exactly what I thought I'd do with my life either, and I'm sure I could be making more money elsewhere, but...I love what I do. I love the students. I...I didn't have a great childhood, myself, and the idea that I can do anything that...helps other kids have a slightly better life...that means a lot to me."

"Bruce…" Tony said, taking a breath to process Bruce's intense sincerity. "That's...kinda beautiful. I wish I'd had a teacher like you." From an early age, Tony had realized that he was smarter than all of his teachers, which hadn't gone well for either Tony or his teachers.

"Well, there's also the fact that getting my PhD almost killed me. I'm not cut out for that level of stress. I mean, not that high school isn't stressful, but...it's better. It's manageable. Mostly."

"But you're so obviously brilliant," Tony said frankly.

Bruce laughed. "Well, thanks for that, but...well, it's not that I wasn't smart enough, I don't think, it was just the constant grind...the pressure to publish, the hours in the lab, the...the grad student culture where everyone was competitive about who got the _least_ sleep…" He shook his head. "It all took a real toll on my mental health, and it was...I was...I barely made it through. So now I focus on helping, and that helps me feel...okay. Teaching is hard work, but I have supportive colleagues. I feel like I'm on a team, instead of competing against everybody else to see who can be first to publish. Plus I get my weekends and summers off."

"Huh. Well, I'm sorry to hear that, but science's loss is your students' gain."

Bruce shook his head. "Nah, that's science's gain, too. Preparing the next generation of scientists. Really, I love what I do. Maybe it's not what I imagined when I was an ambitious teenager, but now I can't imagine doing anything else. What about you?"

"What about me...what?"

"Are you doing what you imagined?"

Tony shrugged. "It was pretty much a given that I'd inherit my father's company, being an only child and all."

"And you like it?" Bruce asked. 

Tony blinked. No one ever asked him that. Everyone assumed that being the CEO was the pinnacle of success. He'd kind of just done the same thing to Bruce, assuming that he would prefer a job with a title more prestigious than "teacher." He took a moment to think before replying, honestly, "I like...the real work of it. I like engineering, inventing. I like making things that will make the world a better place. I don't like the schmoozing, the hand-shaking and all that shit. I...I'm trying to do it, for the sake of the company, but...I'd rather be here." He gestured out at his workshop.

"You are doing things to make the world a better place, you know," Bruce said softly. "I...I just think the stuff the Stark Foundation does is probably more useful than this." He reached out his hand and idly manipulated the holographic model of the self-driving car. "Forgive me for asking, but wouldn't it be better to focus on public transit than single-family cars? I mean, I know not everyone can ride a bike, but still, carbon emissions are a growing concern…."

"You know, distracted driving alone causes over 1.6 million accidents per year," Tony said. "If we can get these self-driving cars out on the road...all of that would be eliminated. The roads would be so much safer. Once the design is perfected and I figure out how it was sabotaged, and we can really get these out into production...and the same tech can be adapted for buses, sure, but it's the profits from the individual sales that will help fund those kinds of public endeavors. And I'm working on cost-efficient electric cars, too."

Bruce looked up from the model and met Tony's gaze, a curious expression on his face. "You really think it was sabotage?"

"It must have been. I mean, I tested everything so many times before I took it out on the road and it _never_ did anything like it did the night of my accident." Tony frowned. "You believe me, don't you?"

Bruce twisted his lips and looked away. He had a terrible poker face.

"I--you said all that stuff about people deserving second chances, and forgiveness," Tony said, hurt by Bruce's silence.

"Yes, of course," Bruce said earnestly. "But I...I also think it's important to take responsibility for your actions. And I...do you really think taking a prototype car out on the road, in the middle of the night, when you were _drunk_ , was the best idea?"

Tony shifted uncomfortably on his feet. "Well, it would have worked," he muttered. 

It was true that he probably hadn't been in the best headspace when he'd decided to take the car out. Tony had always had a somewhat antagonistic relationship with most members of SI's board. They were mostly old guard, and they resented Tony for becoming CEO at such a young age, as if he'd _wanted_ his parents to die and leave him with the company. They'd revered Howard and were too stuck in the past to realize that Tony's inventions were just as impressive as Howard's, if not moreso.

So Tony never enjoyed board meetings, but there had been a particularly rough board meeting scheduled for the date of his father's birthday. His already long meeting had ended with a pointless hour of hagiography as the board members fondly reflected on Howard's genius, while Tony struggled to keep his expression appropriate--mournful, but fond, but also thoughtful; never angry. It had been exhausting. Howard Stark _had_ been a genius--his communications technology had been instrumental in helping the US win the race to the moon--but he'd been a terrible father, not that the board cared about that. 

When Tony had finally gotten to leave that endless board meeting, he'd obviously needed some drinks to help unwind from it. And then he'd thought about how much his missed his mother, and then he thought about how infuriating it was that his father's accident had cost Tony both of his parents. And then he thought about how his self-driving car could end car accidents forever, and he'd just gotten so excited by how good his prototype looked that he simply couldn't wait any longer to see how it handled on the road. 

But still--he knew there was nothing wrong with his design; he'd checked it countless times before, when he was sober.

Bruce shook his head and pulled his jacket back on. "Look, Tony, thanks for the tour, and all, but I guess I'd better get going. I'll see you in January, okay?"

"No--wait, please."

Bruce waited, a hesitant look on his face.

"Can I just show you the prototype? I'd really like for you to see it. Maybe you can help me find the problem." Bruce was brilliant--maybe he would find the exploitable weakness in the prototype. Even if not, maybe Tony could convince Bruce to believe him anyway. He really wanted Bruce to believe him.

"I doubt it, Tony, it's been years since I even drove a car."

"But you're so smart! And sometimes a fresh eye can spot something that's been overlooked. It's why scientific studies have multiple reviewers! _Please_?"

With the same patience Tony had heard Bruce use on whiny teenagers, Bruce said, "Okay, Tony."

Aware that he was being humored, but too happy to protest, Tony said, "Yes! Okay, the garage is on one of the lower levels." Tony detoured through the kitchens to grab a plate of cookies and two cups of cranberry punch on the way down. He handed one cup to Bruce, who discreetly sniffed it.

"It's nonalcoholic. I promise. I'm not…" Tony sighed. "I'm trying my best." Bruce was so obviously a good person; Tony wanted Bruce to think Tony was a good person, too, despite what the tabloids said about him. Tony _was_ a good person, wasn't he? Even if he didn’t live like a monk the way Bruce apparently did?

Bruce smiled. "I appreciate it."

Bruce sipped his punch and listened patiently as Tony walked him through his prototype. It really was a beautiful car: sleek and shiny, hot rod red with gold trim. Bruce didn't quite seem to appreciate it the way Tony did. Since SI had never manufactured cars before, it might have been more logical for him to partner with another automotive manufacturer and just focus on developing the sensors and software to make it self-driving. But that wasn't Tony's way; if he was going to make something, he wanted to _make_ it. And he wanted it to be the _best_. And it would be.

"...And it has world-class encryption, which is where most other self-driving cars in development have left themselves vulnerable to attack. It's not that I don't think Justin Hammer _would_ sabotage it, it's just that I don't think he could. I've been through the code over and over again, I just can't find any vulnerabilities. I'm sure Justin Hammer couldn't."

Tony pulled up a display of his encryption algorithm for Bruce to study. Bruce peered at it and shrugged. "What about something in person?" Bruce asked. "Could anyone have gotten to it directly?"

"I mean, you have to have RFID badge access just to get into this garage. Or be accompanied by me, of course," he said, gesturing at Bruce. "And Justin Hammer hasn't been allowed in this building for years. Not since he stole a bunch of extra favors from the SI holiday party. I heard he passed them off to his own employees. Sad, really."

"Who do you think could do it, then?" Bruce asked. He was looking intently under the hood of the car. 

"I don't know," Tony said. "If I did, then...then I'd do something about it." This had been the crux of his problem. He simultaneously believed that the car worked perfectly, and also that his security measures were impeccable. But one of those things must be wrong, and it was hard for him to think too hard about that.

"Right," Bruce said. He came back up from the hood, an adorable smudge of engine grease on his nose. "Can you come look at this?"

"I've been experimenting with different pistons to make the engine more efficient," Tony said, excited that Bruce had noticed. "I know the shape is a little weird but--"

"No, not that, this," Bruce said, pointing. Tony peered at the small object Bruce was indicating. "This isn't really my area of expertise, obviously, but that doesn't look like it belongs?"

"Son of a bitch," Tony breathed. He'd looked under the hood countless times recently, but his focus was always on the engine block. Now that Bruce had pointed it out, it was all Tony could see. He leaned in and pulled out a small USB drive wedged against the battery housing. A thin black cable snaked out of it, carefully taped down out of the way, back toward the CAN bus in the dash that controlled the car's communications network. Tony was still sure that the CAN's remote access was unhackable, but it was perhaps possible that a manual override could have been plugged in. He'd been sure that the sabotage had been done remotely, since the building's security was so good...but then, he'd thought his network security was good too. _Fuck._

The device was wrapped in black electrical tape so it would blend in with the automotive parts, but Tony recognized the distinctive shape of the SI logo flash drives that had been given as gifts to last year's crop of interns. 

"Bruce, I could just kiss you!" Tony said excitedly. Beside him, Bruce froze, and Tony added, "But I will respect your boundaries and not do that!"

Bruce let out a small, laugh-like exhalation and shook his head. "Hey, should that be dusted for fingerprints or something?"

"What, are you in Peter and Ned's CSI fan club now?"

"I don't know! I just...I'm sorry I didn't believe you, Tony!" Bruce sounded distraught.

"Ah, I don't blame you. And...and you're right, I probably...should have been sober for the first test drive anyway, I just…" Tony trailed off. No need to bring down the mood of the Christmas party further by spilling all of his trite parental trauma. Instead, he grabbed a paper towel and wiped the grease off of Bruce's nose, and then he unwrapped the tape from the flash drive, revealing the SI logo, its gold embossing somewhat marred by tape gunk. "Anyway, you did a great job of looking, for somebody who didn't believe he'd find anything. I should be able to trace this. They were given out to all our interns last year."

"Oh my god."

"I mean, let's...let's wait and see what's on this," Tony said. "Would...I know it's late, but would you mind staying with me while I open it?" He racked his memory. Only a few interns had been given access to the garage. Their names were...ugh, Tony wished he were better with names. Paul? Maybe one of them was Paul. Or Peter. No, Peter was from academic decathlon. Well, there would be a record of that. He was sure he'd recognize their faces if he saw them. Probably. SI had a lot of interns. 

"Of course. It's...it's not going to explode or anything, is it?"

"Doubtful." Tony booted up a laptop and disconnected it from the network, just in case. Then he plugged in the flash drive and studied its contents. "Huh. Huh. Wow. Huh," he muttered.

"What is it?" Bruce asked, leaning over Tony's shoulder. He had a crisp, herbal scent. "This, uh, isn't really my field."

Tony highlighted some lines of code. "It's smart, actually. It didn't override the car's navigation, exactly, or make it do anything predictable...it's why the car worked fine at first. If it hadn't, I would have turned around. But then it, uh, kind of put the car's functions on shuffle. It accelerated straight into that bus when it should have turned."

"God, that's horrible. You could have been seriously injured!" Tony rubbed his ribs absentmindedly. Bruce said, "Wait, were you hurt? I'm sorry, I didn't even think to ask before."

"Ah...some cracked ribs. Nothing major. I'm fine now."

"That's terrible! Oh, my god. Can you tell who did this?"

"Oh, yeah, that's easy. They signed their code. They _wanted_ me to know."

"What? Well, who was it?"

Tony highlighted more lines of code and pointed them out to Bruce. "One of the interns from last year. I remember the name but I can't even put a face to the name. Maya Hansen? She wrote a whole little manifesto in here. I should offer her a job."

"What? No, you should tell the police!"

"I thought everyone deserved a second chance," Tony said.

"There's a middle ground between capital punishment and a job offer! I mean, she could have killed you!"

"Probably not, it does seem like it had a cut-off that wouldn't have let it build up too much speed. Hmm, it's very smart, actually." Tony tapped the screen thoughtfully.

"You're not serious."

"She's right, I didn't notice her when she was an intern. Clearly I undervalued her accomplishments. I'll give her a call."

Bruce eyed him with raised eyebrows. "This definitely feels like a decision you should at least sleep on. Speaking of which, it's getting late, I think I should head home now, if you're okay?"

"Oh, yeah, I'm fine. Great, actually. Vindicated! But hey, I'll have Happy drive you."

"No, it's fine, I'll take the train. I don't want to bother him."

"Or the self-driving car!" 

Bruce looked at it, and at Tony, with obvious skepticism.

"Seriously, it's totally safe now, you saw. And we're both sober." Tony _had_ had some drinks at the beginning of the night--he never would have survived talking to the investors otherwise--but that was hours ago, and he was definitely fine.

"Does it have a manual override now?"

"Yes! It, uh...had one before but...I wasn't really paying attention. Fuck, Bruce, you're right, I should not have been drunk when I took it out before, I was just so...excited."

"Glad you've come around on that," Bruce said drily. 

"Please, Bruce, let's try it. I promise, I might do dumb stuff by myself but I wouldn't put _you_ in danger."

"Ah...well, why not, it's cold out and the G's been having a lot of delays lately. And if we hit a bus, I'll have all of winter break to recuperate."

"We won't hit a bus! Now get in! We're doing science!" 

Bruce carefully buckled his seatbelt and started to give Tony his address, but Tony was already putting it into the GPS. Bruce looked at him with surprise, and Tony shrugged. "I have a good memory for that kind of thing." Tony might not remember his own social security number, but he'd already managed to commit Bruce's address to memory.

Tony opened up the garage and they headed out into the sparsely-populated late night streets. Bruce was leaning forward, intently watching the road. But the car behaved perfectly, passing and stopping with precision, just as it had done in every other test before Tony had taken it out on the road.

"This is pretty cool," Bruce admitted.

"I'm so glad you think so."

"Does it have, the, uh, seat warmers?"

Tony grinned and turned them up, carefully refraining from making any jokes about keeping Bruce's butt warm. "Of course." 

Bruce made a contented sound. "I can definitely see why people would like this kind of thing."

"Thank you for this valuable consumer feedback."

Bruce laughed and changed the subject to academic decathlon, and they chatted about their new team for the rest of the short trip.

When the car pulled up in front of Bruce's building, Tony fought his urge to kiss Bruce goodnight and said, "Well, happy holidays! Are you doing any traveling over your break?"

"Just visiting my mom in Ohio for a few days. Uh, how about you?"

Tony shook his head. "Staying in the city." He knew he'd be welcome at Rhodey's family's house, but Rhodey was bringing Carol home for the first time, and...it felt weird, so Tony had claimed to be too busy with work.

"That sounds nice," Bruce said kindly. "I'd love to avoid the airport this time of year, but, well... thanks for the ride. Uh...would you mind texting me when you get back home safe? Just to make sure that the car didn't kill you."

"It's not going to kill me!"

"But if you could just confirm that...I'd rest easier," Bruce said with a shy smile.

"Fine, I'll text you when I get home," Tony said, quietly pleased that Bruce cared. He watched Bruce leave and settled back into his seat for a safe, if lonely, ride back home, during which it belatedly occurred to him that it was illegal for him to be out in this vehicle without someone with a valid driver's license. Fortunately, the trip was short and uneventful; his repaired prototype obeyed all traffic laws better than Tony himself would have done. He texted Bruce, _Made it home safe, thanks to your good eye._

Bruce wrote back, _Whew! Glad I won't have to coach our giant team without you next semester :)_

Then another text: _Actually, if you have that new evidence about your accident, you could probably get out of your service hours? Well, glad you're alive anyway._

Tony blinked. Huh, maybe he _could_ get Matt to re-open the case now, although that still might be worse publicity than just letting it stand. Plus, his blood alcohol content had been...high. But still...

_No way, I'm not letting my innocence keep me away from those lil nerds. You're just trying to keep all the Oreos for yourself._

Tony could just imagine Bruce's sheepish smile in his response:

_I actually usually buy organic Newman-Os, and I usually do get them all to myself since no one else likes them._

Tony laughed.

_Okay, I definitely can't leave you alone with the students, you're a monster. I'll see you in January._

Bruce wrote back:

_:)_

Tony had been having trouble sleeping lately, but that night he fell asleep with a matching smile on his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how self-driving cars work but I have seen _Fate of the Furious_ at least three times so based on that research, the technology in this chapter is 100% accurate.


	5. Drive Me Crazy

Bruce counted his breaths--in for 4, hold for 7, out for 8, a technique Betty had taught him in grad school--as he waited in the long line for hotel check-in. Since the end of winter break, he and Tony had been co-coaching their combined academic decathlon team for six weeks, and together, their team had qualified for the State Championships in Albany. 

Bruce hated driving, but he still had a valid license and he'd driven the team to the tournament in a rented 15-passenger van. He'd managed to get them all there in one piece, even when the snowstorm started hours earlier than had been forecast. Weather and traffic had made the trip take almost six hours instead of the expected three, and his nerves were fried from navigating the slick roads, despite Tony's best attempts to reassure him over the sounds of teens shouting trivia at each other in the back. 

But--4, 7, 8--things would be fine now. They were in Albany, and the hotel adjoined the convention center where the tournament would be held, so even if the weather remained awful, the kids would get to compete. Finally, he reached the front of the line and produced his ID and school credit card. The frazzled clerk handed over a stack of key cards, Bruce thanked him, and went to distribute keys.

He made note of which kids were in which room, and announced, "OK, I know we got here later than we meant to, but we're here now! You guys have a few hours to yourselves, but be in your rooms by 11, because we've got a big day tomorrow. Mr. Stark and I will come around and check, okay? Any questions?"

Peter raised his hand. "When's dinner?"

Bruce blinked. "We ate dinner on the way. Remember, at that freeway oasis? Like two hours ago? The combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell?"

"Oh. Right."

"I'm sure there are vending machines if you're still hungry?" Bruce said.

"You don't have any snacks?" Ned asked.

"I _do_ , but they're for tomorrow," Bruce said. "Any other questions? I'm sure I don't need to remind you all that usual school rules still apply, as well as, you know, laws, i.e., no drinking?"

"Did you just say 'i.e.' out loud?" Flash asked.

"Do you not know what that means?" MJ asked innocently. "It means, 'in other words,' from the Latin, 'id est'?"

"Of course I knew what it meant," Flash grumbled.

"Great! Then we're all on the same page, and I'll see you all around 11, in your rooms," Bruce said. "We'll be meeting at 7am, here in the lobby, so...try to get some sleep."

The kids dispersed, and Bruce handed a keycard to Tony. They were to share a double room; they were lucky that the school was paying for their travel at all. "I'm going up to the room and try to do some grading."

"I'll come, too. You couldn't pay me to get in that teen-infested indoor pool, and I'm sure not going back into the storm."

They made their way to the third floor and swiped the keycard, revealing...a room with one king-sized bed. "Shit," Bruce said. "I know all the reservations were for double rooms. I'll go talk to them."

Tony shrugged and followed Bruce back down to the lobby. Tony perused a rack of brochures for local attractions while Bruce got back in the line at the desk, even longer now. When he got to the front, the clerk, even more frazzled now, apologized abjectly but explained that with the tournament and the storm, they were completely booked up. There were simply no other rooms to be had. The kids were already four to a double room, so there was no trading with any of them. Bruce and Tony were stuck with the one king bed.

Bruce felt a simmering anger rise in him, but he took another deep breath and let it go. It wasn't this clerk's fault. There was no point in taking it out on him. Bruce bit his lip and said, "Okay. Well...thanks."

The clerk said, "If you complain about it online, someone at corporate will probably give you a voucher for a free room another night? But I can't do anything else. I'm really sorry."

Bruce nodded. "Okay. Yeah, I'll do that, thanks." He debated asking Tony to talk to the clerk--perhaps they could mysteriously find another room for _Tony Stark_? But the reservations were all in Bruce's name, and that clerk already looked so stressed-out, and Bruce just didn't feel comfortable asking Tony to use his influence that way. Even if he also didn't feel comfortable sharing a bed with Tony. Maybe Tony would offer to try? 

Bruce walked back over to Tony, took a deep breath, and said, "I'm really sorry, I guess that was the last room? I can sleep on the floor."

Tony laughed. "Don't be ridiculous, Bruce, it's a king-sized bed. We're both grown-ups. It's fine."

"I swear, I made the reservations for double rooms." Bruce shook the printouts as proof.

"I believe you. You're always so on top of everything. Anyway, look, I get that you're not attracted to me, but I promise I can keep my hands to myself for one night," Tony said lightly.

"What?" Bruce glanced around, hoping none of his students had heard. "That's not--the issue, it's just--well, let's go back up to our room."

In the elevator, Tony said, a smirk playing around his mouth, "So you're saying you're not _not_ attracted to me?"

Bruce licked his lips and looked at the floor. In the weeks since the semester's start, he and Tony had fallen into a comfortable partnership. Bruce effectively ran the team, but Tony showed up and laughed at Bruce's jokes; neither of them ever brought up Tony's past attempts to ask Bruce out. Bruce had assumed that Tony had moved on to greener pastures, though Bruce still couldn't help but notice how attractive and funny and charming Tony was. He wasn't at all prepared to have this conversation, and he wasn't sure he ever would be. He managed, "Tony, I--of course--you're--it's just best if we keep things professional."

"Best for who?"

"For the kids. I--I don't want to make things weird for them." Bruce swiped back into the room.

Tony said, "So...when the season is over and I'm not your assistant coach anymore...things could be different?"

"I--maybe, Tony, but--well, no offense, can't you do better than me? You're _Tony Stark._ "

Tony smiled. "That's true, I am."

Bruce rolled his eyes. "Do you have a preference for which side of the bed?"

"Your pick."

Bruce chose the side closer to the door. He peeled back the comforter and sat down, spreading his grading out in front of him.

Tony said, "You know, I'm not historically a very patient person."

"Okay," Bruce said absently, pulling his favorite green pen out of his bag. He really didn't understand what Tony's game was here. Sure, they were snowed in here for one night, but Tony must have his pick of suitors every other night.

Tony continued, " _But_ I'm willing to make an exception, if you could just give me...anything to go on. Any sign at all that you might be interested in eventually dating me."

Bruce swallowed. "Tony, I--you're amazing but I don't have _time_ to date anyone, after this school merger thing I have no planning periods, I have no lunch break, I just have _five hundred students_ and they all need their homework and tests graded, and half of them need college recommendation letters, and then there's prepping for academic decathlon, and...and...and I'm just so tired but I…" Bruce trailed off. "Anyway, I'm sorry, Tony, I know none of that's your fault, but I just…" he shook his head.

"But I could help you with some of that?" Tony picked up a stack of papers and studied them.

Bruce shook his head again. "I'm sorry, Tony."

"Not to brag, but I'm _very_ smart. I'm sure I could grade some high school quizzes."

"I'm just not comfortable with that, but thank you for the offer."

Tony sighed and replaced the papers. "Okay, Bruce. I guess...I'll go take a walk. I don't suppose the convention center has a bar?"

"Tony, you know you can't drink on a school trip…"

"I know, I was just kidding," Tony said, not entirely convincingly.

Bruce turned back to his grading. He'd made it through two sections of quizzes when the door opened again.

Tony quietly put an orange soda and a bag of peanut M&Ms on the nightstand. "Hey, thought you could use some grading fuel. The vending machines were pretty picked over, and I know it's not organic, but…"

Bruce looked up and smiled. "Oh, thanks, Tony, that's really nice."

"I already drank the last Diet Coke, though, I'm not _that_ nice."

Bruce laughed. "I'd better not have caffeine at this time of night anyway." Despite his exhaustion, he'd been having trouble falling--and staying--asleep lately. Stress made his nightmares worse, and sleep deprivation made his stress worse, and he was trapped in a hellish cycle with no end in sight.

"Right. Very responsible of you."

Tony sat down on the other side of the bed, tapping away on his tablet. Bruce hadn't made as big of a dent in his grading as he would have liked when the alarm he'd set on his phone went off. "Ah! Time to make sure our students are at least temporarily in their rooms."

"Want me to do it?" Tony offered. "Then you can keep working."

"Nah, I'll go."

"We can divide the list? I'll do half?"

"That's okay."

"Wait, do you not trust me?" Tony asked. He sounded hurt. "I'm their coach, too."

"No, of course I do, I just…" He trailed off. If kids had questions about tomorrow, he wasn't sure if Tony would be able to answer them. Which, he supposed, technically meant that he didn't trust Tony. But Tony wasn't always good at remembering details, not for this kind of thing. "Let's just go together."

Tony shrugged. "Okay, your call."

All the kids were in the appropriate rooms; based on the looks in their eyes, Bruce was pretty sure most of them were planning to sneak back out, but he'd done his due diligence.

Back in their room, Tony said, "I'm pretty sure they're planning to sneak back out."

"Yeah," Bruce agreed.

"Did you do stuff like that when you were in high school?" Tony asked.

Attempting to keep his tone light, Bruce said, "No, I was both extraordinarily well-behaved and extraordinarily unpopular. How about you?"

"Opposite," Tony said. "But I'd been away at boarding school since I was eight, so I was _really_ good at sneaking out."

“Eight? That’s pretty young,” Bruce said softly. 

“I was happy to go. School was a lot more fun than home.”

Bruce acknowledged that with a nod and turned back to his grading, unwilling to reveal just how much that statement resonated with him. Tony sighed and settled in next to him. 

"Hey Bruce, when do you want to go to sleep?" Tony asked. "I know we've got kind of an early wake up call."

Bruce glanced at his phone. It wasn't even midnight. Since the schools had merged, Bruce had been getting barely four hours of sleep most nights. "In a few hours, maybe?"

"You sure? You...uh...no offense, you've been looking pretty tired lately."

"Of course I've been looking tired. I am tired. I'm tired _all the time_ and I'm _never finished with my work_ , it never ends!" Bruce drew a ragged breath. "I--I'm sorry, Tony, I didn't mean to snap. It's not your fault."

Gently, Tony said, "Bruce, it pains me to say this, but I think...the responsible thing to do...would be for us to agree to say lights out by 12:30? I think you need to get a decent night's sleep more than you need to finish your grading. It's Friday night. You have the rest of the weekend. And if you don't get your grades in on Monday...then you'll get them in on Tuesday. It'll be okay. Right?"

Bruce bit his lip and nodded. It was true that quarterly grades wouldn't be due for another few weeks. But he knew how hard it was for him to catch up when he got even a little bit behind.

Tony smiled. "Good. Tomorrow's a big day."

"Yeah. No, you're right, it's just...so much."

Tony stood up and lightly rubbed Bruce's shoulders on the way to the bathroom. He returned in red silk pajamas and said, "You've got this, Bruce. And I _am_ going to turn off the lights in half an hour, and I _will_ notice if you just stuff pillows under your side of the blanket and sneak out. You can't get one past me, okay? I know all the tricks."

Bruce smiled. "Okay. Thanks." He graded ten more quizzes and then went to change into his own flannel pants and Peace Corps T-shirt.

"Ready for lights out? Too bad if you're not, get some sleep," Tony said. He turned off the lights.

"Thanks, Tony. Good night," Bruce murmured. He turned away from Tony and curled up at the far edge of the bed. He was exhausted, but he struggled to fall asleep. Even though the bed was large, he was still painfully aware of how close Tony was to him. Every breath and rustle of the sheets rang too loudly in Bruce's ears. He wrapped his arms around his chest and tried to keep still and count his breaths. When he finally succumbed to his exhaustion, he dreamed of his father, until he felt Tony's hand on his shoulder.

"Bruce? You okay?"

Bruce came to with a start. "Oh, god."

Tony turned on the light. "Hey, it's okay, you're okay."

Bruce curled in on himself more tightly, embarrassed. "Sorry…"

Tony hesitantly rubbed circles on Bruce's back. "There's nothing to apologize for, Bruce. Is this okay?"

It took Bruce a moment to realize that Tony meant the back rubbing, and he nodded. "Mm-hmm, thanks Tony. Y-you can turn the lights back out, I'm okay, it's just…it was just a dream."

Tony turned off the light and then continued to gently rub Bruce's back. "You sounded...pretty upset," he said tentatively. "For just a dream."

Bruce was glad for the darkness; he was pretty sure he was blushing. He knew he talked in his sleep, sometimes, when it was bad. How embarrassing to have done so in front of Tony Stark. "Tony, I...I'm pretty messed up."

"What? Because you're behind on grading?"

"No, I...uh…" Bruce hesitated. Maybe he shouldn't just blurt out his trauma at 3 AM. But Tony had been so honest with him before, and was being so kind to him now. Besides, Bruce was so tired, he wasn't sure he had the energy to come up with a lie. "My father was an alcoholic, a, uh, a violent alcoholic, and he was...and he...when he drank, he...well, it took a long time for my mom and me, for us to get away, she almost...we almost...well, so now I have these nightmares, sometimes, and, um, with the stress...well, it's just that."

"Jesus, Bruce," Tony said. He crept closer and put an arm around Bruce. "I'm so sorry."

"Not your fault," Bruce murmured. Tony’s arm around him should have been uncomfortable, but somehow it made him feel secure. Safe.

"Aw, shit, this is why you don't drink, huh?" Tony asked, his voice close to Bruce’s ear. 

"It's, um, yeah," Bruce admitted into the darkness.

"God, I'm sorry, I'm an asshole, I know I've been making a lot of jokes about it, it's just...kind of a habit for me, I...I wouldn't have…"

"It's okay, Tony. You didn't know. I...I don't really like to talk about it."

"Well, thanks for telling me. For trusting me."

"I...I'm sorry to have woken you, I know we have an early start tomorrow."

"Don't worry about that. I get nightmares too, I know how it goes."

"You do?" Tony always seemed so cool, so confident, so...unlike Bruce.

"Ever since the car accident, I've been, uh...yeah."

"Oh." And then something clicked for Bruce. He didn't put much stock in celebrity gossip, but the other day he'd read some news story about SI and been reminded about Tony's family history. "God, _I'm_ an asshole. Your parents were killed in a car accident, weren't they?"

"Yeah," Tony said softly. "But you're not an asshole. You were right, I still shouldn't have been drinking when I took the prototype out…"

"No. But...but I get why it's so important to you now. The car thing. I'm sorry I didn't before. I...I'm sorry." Of course Tony would want to invent something that could end car accidents, given his past. And Bruce had been dismissive and sanctimonious about carbon emissions.

Tony gently squeezed his arm around Bruce. "Thanks. We should probably try to get some sleep now?"

Bruce opened his mouth to tell Tony that he could stop holding him and go back to his side of the bed, that Bruce was fine. But instead, he murmured, "Good night, Tony," and drifted back to sleep in Tony's arms.

When the alarm went off at 6 AM, Tony was still holding him. For a second, it felt unbelievably nice. Then Tony shifted, and gently traced his fingers over Bruce's shoulder before pulling his arm off and rolling away. Bruce bit his lip as he remembered the events of last night with embarrassment.

"Ugh, is there coffee?" Tony asked. Bruce was so, so grateful that he didn't say anything about last night.

"There's one of those little in-room makers. I'll start some coffee and then I'm going to hop in the shower?"

"Mmph, my hero," Tony said, into the pillow.

Bruce laughed. He felt better rested than he had in weeks, and he cheerfully went about his morning routine. He put on his suit and periodic table tie; he wasn't superstitious exactly, but wearing it was kind of an academic decathlon tradition. He sat on the edge of the bed and went over the schedule again, trying not to notice Tony shaving and putting product in his hair with the bathroom door open. Tony emerged, looking ready to appear on a magazine cover, at 6:55 AM. 

"Ready?" Bruce asked.

"Just about," Tony replied. He reached out and casually straightened Bruce's tie. "Okay, let's go." 

Bruce swallowed and set out for the hotel lobby with Tony following close behind. None of the kids were more than ten minutes late for their appointed meeting time. They quickly claimed their free continental breakfast--including plenty of awful coffee--before getting checked in for the tournament.

Outside the room where their first match would be held, Bruce cleared his throat. "Hey, uh, I just want to say that I'm really proud of you all for coming together and working so well together. I know this has been an unconventional season, but I...well, we made it this far, and no matter what happens today, I'm really proud of you all."

"You already said that," MJ said.

Bruce sighed. "Well, I'm doubly proud of you, okay? I'm sorry, I didn't plan a big speech or anything."

"I'm proud of you too!" Tony said.

"We're proud you didn't violate your parole," MJ said.

"He's not on parole, MJ," Bruce said. 

"Then I'm proud of that," MJ replied. 

"Okay, let's just...let's all just do our best today, okay?" Bruce said, rubbing his forehead.

"Sounds like a plan, Dr. Banner," Shuri said.

"If we do our best and don't win, can we still go to DC?" Flash asked.

"...No," Bruce said. "But I'll still be proud of you!"

Flash made an ambivalent face in response.

"Well, anyway, let's go get 'em!" Bruce said. Years of teaching had finely crafted his ability to fake enthusiasm on little sleep.

By lunchtime, he didn't have to fake enthusiasm. The team was 2-1 going into the afternoon rounds, and everyone was feeling good. Bruce didn't want to _count_ on them winning, but even his deeply pessimistic self thought they had a pretty good chance at at least placing in the top 3.

Sure enough, late afternoon found them competing for the state championship against Marymount Academy. Bruce leaned forward anxiously, shaking his foot while he watched his team compete. Tony gently nudged his knee against Bruce's. Bruce didn't outwardly react, but it did feel reassuring. God, was Tony really serious about wanting to date Bruce? In spite of...everything? Bruce couldn't think about that right now.

Peter buzzed in and said, "Um, Pym Particles?" 

"Correct!" said the moderator.

The points IHA got from the following bonus round brought the score up to 285-285, and Bruce's nervous foot shake was approaching hyperspeed. Tony put his hand on Bruce's knee. Bruce stopped breathing.

Shuri buzzed in and said, "Cape Town, Bloemfontein, and Pretoria."

"Correct!" said the moderator, and 10 points went to IHA. Bruce slowed his shaking foot down marginally, but his heart didn't stop racing until the match was finally over, 380-365. They'd won, and would move on to compete at Nationals in Washington, D.C. The thought of _that_ sent Bruce's blood pressure back up--that would be another big chunk of time spent traveling and waiting around, time that Bruce really needed to spend on sleeping and grading. But he pushed that thought out of his mind. The kids deserved to go. And _then_ academic decathlon would be over for the year and he could have a little more time back in his schedule.

"I'm so proud of you guys! I mean, you all. Sorry, I know, I'm trying to cut back on gendered language," he said, glancing at MJ. "The point is, um, proud."

"We gathered," MJ said with a smirk.

"Can we get dinner now?" Peter asked.

"Yeah, the roads are cleared, so let's grab our bags and hit up the finest Applebee's Albany has to offer," Bruce said.

"I'll check Yelp," Ned said.

"That was a joke, we'll just go to whatever is between our hotel and the highway."

"That one has 3.5 stars," Ned replied.

"Good enough!" Bruce said. And it was, despite the unfortunately iceberg-heavy salad Bruce had to order in the absence of other vegetarian options. Tony paid for everyone's dinner, and they hit the road. 

After dropping the kids off at the school, Tony came with Bruce to return the rented van, and Happy came to give them both rides home. 

Outside of Bruce's building, Bruce said, "Thanks, Tony, and Happy, I really appreciate it."

Tony replied, "No problem. But would you do me a favor?"

"What?" Bruce asked warily. 

"Will you get some more sleep this weekend?"

Bruce opened his mouth to reply, and stopped when he saw the genuine concern in Tony's expressive brown eyes. He nodded. "I'll try."

Tony shook his head. "Do, or do not, there is no try."

Bruce laughed. "Touché. Okay. I...will get some sleep. Thanks again, Tony, for everything."

Tony winked. "I'm sure I'll think of something you can do to pay me back." 

Bruce felt a moment's peace when he collapsed into his own bed, by himself, that night. And he got a few blissful hours of sleep, but then another nightmare hit him, and when he was up he remembered how much grading he had to do, so he figured he might as well get back to work on that, and by the time Monday morning rolled around, he was an exhausted, twitchy mess again, barely able to accept the congratulations from Dr. Foster and the rest of his colleagues. 

He had a mental countdown going--Nationals would be over spring break, and then he could rest. Well, he'd still have his ridiculous courseload, but he wouldn't have the hours of practice each week, or the additional hours he spent preparing for practice. He could do so much with those extra hours, and he only had six more weeks until he got them.

Bruce had once thought that having an "assistant coach" might make it easier to prepare for practice, but Tony rarely contributed beyond showing up to practice, sometimes on time. Once in awhile Bruce thought about asking Tony to pick up some slack, but he knew he'd have to spend more time teaching Tony how to do what needed to be done, and it seemed easier to just do it himself. 

Besides, Bruce was still nervous about the feelings for him that Tony had professed to have. Bruce though he might reciprocate them but...it had been so long since Bruce had been in a relationship. Was that even what Tony wanted? Surely if famed billionaire playboy Tony Stark wanted to be in a _relationship_ , he'd be in one with someone more suitable than Bruce. Of course, it might be nice to be with Tony...to kiss him, to spend the night with him on purpose...but would it be worth the heartache that would certainly follow, when Tony realized what Bruce was really like?

Bruce was certain that it would _not_ be worth it, but as time went on, it got harder for him to remember that when confronted with Tony's stupid handsome face. So he mostly tried to avoid Tony as much as possible, which was easy when he had so much work to do.

Two weeks before Nationals, Bruce was dreading another practice. He'd already been having an awful day. He'd slept poorly, of course, and then some asshole with a Porsche had completely disregarded the bike lane and almost driven Bruce off the road on his way to work. The aftermath of the near-collision had made his salad explode all over his bag, robbing him of his lunch and getting vinaigrette on his latest batch of problem sets. Rattled from his commute, he'd explained the day's experiment badly to his first class. The students had been confused and clumsy and ended up ruining the entire supply of balloons he'd had for their experiment. He couldn't really blame them; the class was too crowded and there were way too many students sharing each lab table. (Some of the balloons were just casualties of goofing off, though.) But he'd intended for those supplies to last for all three of his morning sessions, which meant that he'd had to scramble at the last minute to find something else for his other classes to do. He always hated feeling unprepared for class, and the effects were worse when there was a completely jam-packed room of grumpy students. He had to be at the top of his game to keep them all focused and engaged, and on this day, he was very far from that.

But he eventually made it through the agonizing school day, with only a 90-minute academic decathlon practice (and a 20-minute bike commute) standing between him and his couch.

And then Tony walked in to practice ten minutes late with Starbucks. 

"Nice of you to join us, Mr. Stark," Bruce said, more sharply than he'd usually speak to a colleague, or to anyone, really.

Tony raised his eyebrows. "You look tired. Want me to take over reading questions today?" 

Bruce rolled his eyes. "Sure, you might as well do _something_ around here." He passed the packet of questions to Tony, who gave Bruce one of his cups of coffee in exchange. Bruce took it, although drinking it wasn't the best idea given his empty stomach. Still, Bruce sipped the coffee as he slunk to a desk in the back of the room, where he hoped to sneak in a little bit of grading. Instead he watched with concern as Tony and the kids goofed around. The kids were mostly getting the questions right, but they weren't focused. Gamora and Nebula were texting, probably each other. Darcy was doing her nails. Stephen was practicing a card trick in between questions. Peter was balancing precariously on the back of a chair, with Ned's encouragement.

Tony turned the page and asked, "Okay, geniuses, why did the chicken cross the road?" which was _not_ in the practice packet.

MJ buzzed in and said, "Because it was free-range."

"May I remind you all that Nationals are in two weeks?" Bruce asked pointedly.

"Relax, Dr. B, we know," Darcy said. "You know what they say about all work and no play. Wait, you have seen that movie, right? It's like, from your era."

"I wasn't even born when _The Shining_ came out," Bruce protested. A few weeks ago they'd memorized a list of seminal films with directors and release dates. (Stanley Kubrick, 1980.)

"The point is, even Beyoncé takes breaks occasionally," Shuri said. 

"Yeah, let's take a break. Do you have any snacks?" Flash asked.

Bruce forced himself to take a deep breath. They were probably right; they were still kids, after all. They deserved a break, even if Bruce couldn't have one for another two weeks. He reached into his bag and pulled out a package of Newman-Os.

Flash made a face. "Do you have any _good_ snacks?"

And then something inside of Bruce snapped. "You know what? I have spent a _substantial_ amount of money on snacks! You think the new school budget reimburses me for snacks? You think Tony has _once_ remembered to buy snacks, even though _he is literally a billionaire_? No! He hasn’t! And you know what? These are _more expensive_ than real Oreos but I get them anyway because I didn't want you all to eat so much _high fructose corn syrup_ , because _I care about you_. So _no_ , Flash, I don't have any _good_ snacks, I guess, I just have these, and you can either eat them or shut the fuck up!”

"Um, sorry, Dr. Banner," Flash squeaked. "Those cookies are fine…"

Bruce shook his head and continued, “I mean, I have given up _so much_ of myself for you all, for this school. Besides the snacks! Every week, in addition to doing grading for _five hundred students_ , I have to spend hours preparing for practice, not to mention all the time at matches and tournaments. I have spent _so much_ of my time on academic decathlon! Is it too much to hope for a _thank you_ now and then?!" 

He threw the cookies at Flash, as hard as he could. He kicked over a desk and threw a chair. It felt _so good_ to get that off his chest, to let off a little steam, and for a moment he reveled in it, feeling more relaxed than he had all day, all week. 

Then horror washed over him. Oh, god, what had he done? What was _wrong_ with him? What had happened to all the oxygen in the room?

He felt a hand on his shoulder and heard a voice, close to his ear. "Hey, buddy, you okay?" Bruce looked up and saw Tony standing beside him. He looked down and saw the cookies, still in his hands, but crushed in his white-knuckled grip. He looked out and saw the chairs and desks all still standing in their pristine rows, with all of his students looking up at him with wide, worried eyes.

"Oh, my god, no, I'm so sorry, I, uh…" Bruce shook his head and pulled away from Tony's hand. He walked out of the classroom and made it to the hallway, where he sank to the floor. He couldn't breathe. Abruptly, Bruce realized he was having a panic attack. _Shit_ , he hadn't been this bad since grad school. Had he--what had he really said to his students? What had he done? He'd come so close to--oh god, he really couldn't breathe. He was still holding the stupid cookies and he clutched them to his chest.

Then Bruce felt an arm slide around his shoulders. "Bruce, just breathe, you're okay. Okay?"

"Tony...go...the kids?"

Tony laughed. "Half of them are off to college in a few months. I think they can handle being unattended in a classroom for five minutes. Breathe with me, okay? Breathe in...out…"

Eventually, Tony got Bruce calmed down, which just meant Bruce was more aware of what a monster he'd been. Kindly, Tony said, "Okay, buddy, how about we get you home now?"

"No, uh...you should finish practice. I'll just go..."

"For the love of…" Tony muttered. He stood up and popped his head back in the classroom. "Hey, kids, Dr. Banner's not feeling well, I'm going to help him get home. Practice is over early. Enjoy your extra thirty minutes of unstructured time. Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

Bruce heard Peter call, "Is Dr. Banner okay?"

"I _literally_ just said he's not feeling well."

"I mean, like…"

"He'll be fine! Go home!" Tony replied. Then he stood in front of Bruce, shielding his body as the students filed out of the classroom and down the hall, murmuring quietly amongst themselves. Tony crouched back down next to Bruce. "See? The kids are fine. Now let's get you home."

Bruce let Tony pull him up off the floor, which was admittedly not where he'd prefer to spend the rest of his afternoon. Tony carefully pried the dusted cookies out of his hands and threw them away in the first trash can they passed.

Outside, Bruce said, "I'll just ride my bike home, I'm fine."

"Gotta be honest: not very convincing, Bruce. Here, unlock it and I'll put it in the back, Happy's almost here."

Bruce's hands were shaking so badly he couldn't unlock the bike from the rack. Tony laughed, gently, and put his hand over Bruce's hands. "Let me help you out, okay? What's the combination?" Bruce told him, and Tony easily unlocked it. "I promise not to steal your bike. Aphorism aside, I’m genuinely not sure I remember how to ride one, it's been so long since Jarvis taught me how..."

"Okay." Bruce was still mentally replaying the scene in his classroom. He'd been so _angry_ , and for what? Some dumb comment about cookies? He couldn't be trusted around children. Tony led him into the car and prompted him to buckle his seatbelt.

"Seriously, Bruce, what's going on? Should I have Happy take you to the hospital?"

"Just home, please…"

"Are you sure?"

"Just a panic attack…and I lost my temper..."

"How can I help?"

Bruce shook his head and tried to count his breaths.

Tony sighed. "I'm worried about you, buddy."

"Don't call me _buddy_! I'm not a, a--puppy or something! I'm--I'm--" Bruce's breaths grew ragged again.

"Okay, sorry, Bruce," Tony said, his tone appeasing. That just made Bruce angrier.

"Stop being so nice to me! I--I said such horrible things to the kids! To you! I'm a monster!"

"Honestly, I'm sure I've said worse things to Flash like, every day. Just not, maybe, quite so loud. And...and you had a point. About all of it. We...I...I haven't been helping you as much as I could, and I'm so sorry. I could tell you were struggling, but I've had--I didn't realize...well, I'm sorry."

"But I shouldn't have _yelled_!"

"Well, Flash shouldn't be such a goddamn dick all the time, but he is, and here we are. Seriously, this'll all blow over and everyone will forget about it by next practice."

Bruce shook his head, unconvinced. Even if the students forgot--which they shouldn't--Bruce knew _he_ never would. "He's a kid. I'm an adult. I should know better."

"Adults aren't perfect," Tony said softly. 

Bruce wrapped his arms around himself and gazed out the window. The scene in his classroom continued to replay in his mind.

When Happy pulled up in front of Bruce's building, Bruce leaned forward to mumble "Thanks" to Happy before stumbling out of the car. Tony got out too, and carried Bruce's bag and bike while Bruce fumbled with his keys. 

Bruce paused at the door to his apartment and took the bike from Tony. "Thanks. Sorry, I...sorry."

"Don't mention it," Tony said, and then he followed Bruce inside. 

"Oh, no, Tony, you can go home. I'm fine."

"Yeah, I'm still not buying that, and I don't think you should be alone right now, so...you can just ignore me and do what you need to do. What's your WiFi password, though?"

Bruce sighed. He gave the password and then went to his bedroom, pulling the door shut behind him. Tony pulled it back open and followed.

"Tony…"

"I'm worried!"

Bruce rolled his eyes. He got in bed and pulled the blanket over his head as Tony settled into Bruce's shabby overstuffed reading chair. 

"Seriously, Bruce, I'm so sorry I didn't help out more, and bring snacks and stuff. I promise I will from now on. I'll have Pepper put it on my schedule, and--"

"Tony, for once in your life would you just shut _up_?" 

"Okay, sorry," Tony said, with uncharacteristic meekness.

It was quiet enough that Bruce could hear Tony's soft breathing (and phone tapping). He didn't understand why Tony was still here. Didn't Tony understand who Bruce was, who he'd finally revealed himself to be? Surely Tony had better things to do right now. Bruce was embarrassed and mad and ashamed and tired, and he didn't need a witness to see him like this. Especially not Tony.

Eventually, Bruce heard Thor come in, and then he heard Tony attempt to have a hushed conversation with Thor. Unfortunately for Tony, Thor didn't really have a "hushed" volume, and Bruce could very clearly hear Thor's half of the conversation, as he told Tony all about how worried _he'd_ been about Bruce lately, how withdrawn Bruce had been, how resistant to Thor's attempts to help. Thor told Tony that he was right, Bruce probably _should_ talk to a professional. Thor thanked Tony for his time and promised to text him updates. 

Bruce _hated_ the idea of Thor texting Tony "updates" about him. Why were they so fucking nosy? Anyway, he didn't deserve their concern; they'd all be better off without him.

Tony stuck his head back in Bruce's room. "Hey, Bruce, uh, I'm going to head home now, but--"

"But Thor will text you updates about what a mess I am," Bruce said flatly, still under his blanket.

"Bruce! I really don't think you understand how worried we are," Tony said. "And I think justly so. Anyway, let me know if you need anything. And if you don't let me know, my new friend Thor will, sooo."

"Fine."

"I'll see you at practice on Tuesday?" Tony asked.

Bruce didn't reply. He knew there was no way he could go back to practice, and he didn't know why Tony would think otherwise. After a long moment, Tony sighed and said, "Take care of yourself, okay?" He gently patted Bruce's back through the blanket, and then Bruce heard Tony leave. 

Approximately three seconds later, Thor came in. Bruce groaned. Why didn't his friends understand the concept of privacy? 

"Bruce! I heard you had a difficult day at work. I am sorry."

"I'm fine," Bruce said, still under his blanket.

"Very well, but I will bring you dinner shortly."

Bruce sighed and eventually Thor left, too. Bruce rolled over and sent a quick email from his phone.

**_Subject: Resignation_ ** __

_Dr. Foster,_

_I'm sure you've heard about my inappropriate outburst at academic decathlon today. I'm so sorry for my behavior, and I would like to tender my resignation, effective immediately._

_Best,_

_Bruce Banner_

Then he turned his phone off and counted his breaths, hoping to fall asleep quickly. It was barely 6 PM but he just didn't want to be conscious anymore. He couldn't believe that after so many years of trying to avoid it, he'd ended up just like his father after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To everyone who was hoping they'd kiss in this chapter: I'm very sorry and I promise they will definitely kiss...eventually :3


	6. Smells Like Teen Spirit

"Okay, it's 5 o'clock, you don't have to go home but you can't stay here," Tony announced. He fought a sigh when half of his team put their hands up.

"Fine, sure, I guess we have time for questions. Yes, Darcy?"

"When is Dr. Banner coming back?"

"I don't know, Darcy, I'm sorry." If it weren't for Thor's texts, Tony wouldn't even be sure Bruce was alive. "Uh, yes, Stephen?"

"But he'll be with us for Nationals, right?"

"I don't _know_ , Stephen. I hope so. Manuela?"

"How is Dr. Banner feeling?"

"I...I don't know. I hope better. He's been resting."

She nodded serenely. "He was feeling very badly for a very long time."

Tony bit his lip. He knew Manuela wasn't trying to put blame on Tony, but he couldn't help but feel responsible for not realizing just how badly his coaching partner's mental health had deteriorated over the last few months. Tony had been so busy trying to maintain control of his company that he hadn't properly noticed Bruce losing his control.

"Yeah, I guess he was," Tony agreed.

"I fear that our disregard for authority played a role in his decline," Manuela mused. "Mostly Flash."

"Shut up, Mantis," Flash said.

Tony took a deep breath. "Don't call her Mantis."

"I don't mind," Manuela said. "Having a nickname makes me feel included in the group."

"Um...okay," Tony said. "Anyway, no, it's not your fault, any of you. I know...I know Br--Dr. Banner doesn't blame any of you. He's just been really stressed with, you know, school stuff. He's taking a break. Um, does anyone have questions that _aren't_ about Dr. Banner, because I've already told you everything I know?"

"Don't we need to have permission slips for Nationals or something?" MJ asked. "It's barely a week away."

"Shit. Yes. Probably? I, uh...will look into that."

"What about travel arrangements?"

"I...um...I think Dr. Banner already made those? I'll ask him. I promise, we'll get to Washington D.C."

MJ looked unconvinced. Tony said, "Look, I run a Fortune 500 company, I'm sure I can figure out details of a high school academic decathlon tournament without Dr. Banner, if I have to."

All of the students looked alarmed now.

"Wait, I thought you said he would be there for Nationals," Wong said.

"No, I said I hoped so," Tony said. "Ugh, look, seriously, things will be fine. Go _home_ , I'll see you at practice on Thursday."

He managed to lock up the classroom, sign out at the front office, and get into Happy's waiting car before he buried his face in his hands and groaned with frustration.

"Everything okay, boss?"

"Not really, no. Can you take me to Bruce's place?"

Tony texted Bruce that he was on his way to visit. He didn’t expect a reply, nor did he receive one. Bruce had been completely unresponsive to all of Tony’s varied attempts to reach out--calls, texts, and emails--since he’d dropped Bruce off on Thursday. Tony had been trying to give Bruce some space, since that's what he seemed to want, but enough was enough. 

Tony buzzed up to Bruce's apartment. "Bruce, it's Tony, please let me in. Bruce, seriously, I'll stand here all night, and I'm going to keep hitting this button until you let me in." He followed through on that threat, hitting the button over and over for the better part of an hour, occasionally stepping out of the way for a delivery or resident to get through. Everyone who crossed his path did a double-take, and Tony could just see them all thinking, _Is that_ Tony Stark _? Nah, must just look like him, weird._ And none of them had the decency to let him into their building. He supposed he probably did have kind of a manic look in his eyes at this point. Tony probably wouldn't have let himself into his building, but he kept hoping that Bruce would.

Bruce was stubborn, but so was Tony. Finally, Thor walked up with a gym bag over his shoulder and a sheen of sweat on his face. He seemed unsurprised to see Tony. "Ah! Stark! Good to see you. Let us go and see how Bruce is doing this evening. I am sure he will be cheered by your visit."

Thor let Tony in, and together they found Bruce sitting on the couch, wearing pajamas and big noise-cancelling headphones. Bruce was looking vaguely in the direction of the TV; Star Trek was playing, but Bruce's eyes didn't quite seem focused on it. (Tony assumed Bruce had added the headphones when Tony started his assault on the apartment's buzzer.) Bruce’s cheeks had at least a few days’ worth of stubble; it would have looked good if it weren’t for the huge dark circles under his eyes.

Tony sat next to him, while Thor busied himself in the kitchen. "Hey, Bruce, thanks for letting me in, it definitely wasn't awkward to hang out on your front step for 45 minutes."

Bruce ignored him. Tony sighed. "Just kidding. I get it. But Bruce, how are you? We all miss you at academic decathlon. _I_ miss you." After getting no response, he muted the television and cautiously pulled the headphones off of Bruce's ears. Bruce flinched, and Tony felt wounded. "Sorry, but I really need to talk to you. How are you?"

Bruce made an unintelligible sound. 

"Okay, well, here's how I am: very worried about you. And very sorry that I didn't do more to help you out before." He really did wish he'd done more to help Bruce, but Bruce seemed so particular about everything. Tony always felt like he was just making things worse whenever he tried to help, like the time when he prepared some math questions for practice, but hadn't realized that they were all technically post-graduate level problems.

Bruce shrugged.

"Seriously, Bruce, I'm so sorry, can you ever forgive me? I feel awful," Tony pleaded.

Bruce looked at him with confusion. "Tony, you didn't do anything."

"I know! And I'm trying to tell you I'm sorry!"

"No, I mean, it's not your fault. _I'm_ sorry I talked to you the way I did."

"I deserved it. I've been a shitty assistant coach. And, I, uh, just to drive home how little help I've been giving you...I need to know what arrangements you've already made for Nationals? Um, like is the hotel already booked? Do they need permission slips? You know, uh, those minor details?" Tony said lightly. 

Bruce, finally roused from his stupor, said, "Oh. Yeah. I'll forward you some stuff." 

Tony looked over Bruce's shoulder as he picked up his laptop and opened his email. He opened a folder and forwarded several messages from it to Tony. In the background, they could hear Thor using the blender.

"There, you guys should be all set. Have fun," Bruce said flatly.

"Wait, what do you mean? You're not coming?"

"Didn't Dr. Foster tell you? I quit."

"She told me you _tried_ to quit but she didn't accept your resignation. You're on medical leave."

Bruce made a cute scrunched-up face. "Well, she’ll figure it out when I run out of PTO, I guess. If I haven’t already."

Tony _did_ wonder how much paid time off that school gave Bruce. Probably not enough. He made a mental note to look into that and said, "Anyway, you can't quit. We need you. The kids miss you so much. And I miss you more." 

"I can quit. I _did_ quit. I can't go back there."

“Well, what are you going to do instead?”

“I was thinking about going back to Colombia, maybe working on green energy projects there. I know some people.”

Tony felt a little pang in his chest at that. Bruce couldn't leave the country! He tried to sound calm as he said, “Okay, first of all, if you want to work on green energy, you should obviously come work for SI. But seriously, you love teaching. You’re great at teaching. You just need a little break, and a reasonable workload.”

Bruce shook his head, and Tony pressed on. "Didn't Dr. Foster talk to you? Thor told me she said they could hire a college student to help with your grading, and maybe reduce your class load. Apparently the union is doing their best to improve conditions, within Chancellor Thanos' ridiculous limitations…she said a lot of other teachers were already getting help like that but you hadn't complained."

"It's not about the work, Tony, it's...I mean, I screamed at those kids. At _you_. I said such awful things, and I felt...and I wanted to...I...was completely out of control. It's not safe for me to be around them."

"Safe? What are you even talking about?" Tony asked. And then he remembered Bruce's anguished nightmare and stuttered late-night admission about his father, the night before State finals, and his heart sank. "Oh, Bruce. You're not like...you'd never do anything to hurt those kids."

"I already did!"

"No, you just surprised them, that’s all. They're already over it. They know you were stressed. Those kids _love_ you."

Bruce made a frustrated sound. "That makes it worse!" 

"I'm not sure I follow."

"You know, my father...the worst part wasn't him hurting us. It was the next day, when he was _so_ sorry and _so_ nice to us, and every time we could almost believe that it was real, that this would be the last time. But...but it never was, not until we finally left. And I...I can't...I won't..." Bruce trailed off and covered his face with his hands.

Tony felt sick to his stomach for Bruce. Tony was dimly aware that Howard's aggressively hands-off parenting had left its effects on Tony, but not like this. He put his arm around Bruce. Bruce tensed; Tony winced. As much as he hated to admit it, Tony was definitely out of his depth here. 

Tony said, "I really think you should talk to someone. A, a professional. Someone who can help you understand the difference between what your father did to you, repeatedly, and what you said on one bad day. Especially before you make a big decision like leaving the country."

So softly that Tony could barely hear, Bruce said, "It wasn't just what I said, it was...it was what I thought. I thought about...I really wanted to...I..."

"You can't control what you think, Bruce. You can control what you _do_." Edwin Jarvis had told him that, back when he was a bratty kid whose excuse for acting out at church or endless grownup parties was always boredom. Jarvis had meant that it didn’t matter if Tony zoned out at stuff like that as long as he was quiet, but Tony was pretty sure it could apply here, too.

"What if you hadn't been there to stop me? I...I think I might have…"

"Bruce, I'm sure you wouldn't have done anything. But...but I really wish you would talk to a professional. If you won't listen to me when I tell you that you're a good, kind person who had a bad day, maybe you'll listen to them."

"My therapist moved to California," Bruce said glumly.

"Oh no! I can’t believe the only therapist in the entire state of New York is gone now," Tony teased. 

"She was nice. And she took my insurance. Well, I guess I have new insurance now anyway...but it just seems...like so much work to find a new one. I was supposed to...did you know when you come back from the Peace Corps, you're entitled to three free counseling sessions for 'readjustment'? But I never even set those up...I maybe should have. I'm clearly not adjusted," Bruce said with a hollow laugh.

"If I find another therapist who takes your insurance, and make an appointment for you, will you please go?" He’d never been to therapy himself, but he had to imagine it would help Bruce. That was their job, right?

After a long pause, Bruce nodded. Eyebrows furrowed, he asked, "Why are you being so nice to me?"

Tony’s immediate response was an uncontrollable indignant noise, but he added, "Because you were nice to me first. Because I care about you. Because I don't want to take a bunch of high schoolers to Washington, D.C. by myself."

A faint smile ghosted across Bruce's lips at that.

Tony added, "Plus, you know--someone really smart told me not to judge people by their worst day."

"Thanks, Tony," Bruce whispered.

"I--I don't think I ever told you, how much it meant to me when you told me that. I really needed to hear it that day."

Tony had kept his arm around Bruce throughout their conversation--despite Bruce's tense reaction to the contact, it had felt more awkward for Tony to retract it--and Bruce had sat stiffly upright, his shoulders practically vibrating with tension. But now he leaned his head against Tony's shoulder, and Tony took it as a hard-won victory.

Then Thor came into the room with a cup in each hand. "Hello, friends, would you like some green smoothies?"

"No thanks," Bruce said.

Disapprovingly, Thor said, "Then what will you eat instead? You must eat."

Bruce considered for a moment before wordlessly extending a hand to take the smoothie. Although they looked disgusting, Tony took the other one, to be a good example. Thor had mentioned in his texts that Bruce wasn't doing the best job at keeping himself fed.

Tony took a sip and raised his eyebrows. "This is good!"

"Why do you sound so surprised?" Thor asked.

"It just looks, um, I mean...it's even better than I thought it would be?"

Bruce let out a soft laugh. Thor crossed his giant arms over his giant chest, but his face looked pleased. 

In the background, a fresh episode of Star Trek started autoplaying. Tony recognized it immediately, even without the sound. "Oh man, I love this one!" Tony said.

"You like Star Trek?" Bruce asked.

"Obviously." Tony knew that Star Trek had its share of flaws and cheesy effects, but he loved that every incarnation of the series shared a profound optimism for the future. Tony vastly preferred it to anything that predicted a dystopian, post-apocalyptic future for humanity.

Bruce smiled and turned the volume back up. Tony sat with Bruce, slowly drinking green smoothies and watching old episodes of Star Trek, for over an hour. Occasionally they made jokes or observations, but mostly they sat in companionable quiet. And when Bruce finished his smoothie, he nestled his head back up against Tony's shoulder. Tony felt comfortable there, despite the cheap Ikea sofa, and Bruce showed no signs of wanting him to leave. Tony felt like things might be okay.

But then Tony checked his phone and saw several messages from Pepper, reminding him of a very important upcoming conference call. "Shit!" he blurted out.

Bruce looked up at him with surprise in his warm hazel eyes. "What's wrong?"

Tony regretted his involuntary reaction. "No, nothing."

"Tony, what happened?"

"Ugh, sorry, it's just...I have this conference call I'm supposed to do, like, now."

"Oh...you can do it here, if you want? In my bedroom if you need privacy? I'm sorry to have kept you."

"Not at all, I'd much rather be here than my office." Tony bit his lip and looked at Pepper's messages again. Every inch of him wanted to blow off the call and stay with Bruce, but Pepper reminded him how many jobs--how many people--depended on Tony doing his part to keep the company afloat. He sighed. "But, uh, if you're okay, I'd better go, actually…there's some tech I need that's only at my office. I'll just hop on the call a little late, it'll be fine."

"Of course, go, run your Fortune 500 business."

"But I will find a therapist for you, okay? And, and anything else I can do to help. Seriously."

Bruce squeezed Tony's hand. "Thanks, Tony."

Tony gave Bruce a side-hug on the couch and shook Thor's hand before sprinting out the door, where Happy was waiting for him with irritation. Happy got him to the office in record time and Tony got on the call a mere fifteen minutes late, able to smoothly deploy all of the talking points Pepper had prepared for him and left on his desk.

Afterward, she asked, "How'd it go?"

"Beautifully, thanks to you. You're a lifesaver."

"Do you need anything else?"

Tony was on the verge of asking her to help him look for therapists for Bruce, but he decided to take on that project himself. "Nah, I'm good, you should go."

"Good, because we're already twenty minutes late for our dinner reservation," Nat said, materializing next to Pepper.

"Aah! How long have _you_ been here?" Tony asked.

She shrugged. "More than twenty minutes."

"Okay. Well...enjoy your dinner?"

"We will," Nat said, with a killer smile.

Tony checked his phone and found a text from Thor:

_Thank you for visiting, Stark. Today Bruce was the happiest I have seen him in many days!_

That was kind of depressing, because Bruce hadn't looked very happy at all. But Tony wrote back:

_Of course. Thanks for letting me know. He said he'd visit a therapist if I made an appointment for him, so I'm trying to set that up now._

Thor's response read simply:

_!!!!!_

Tony smiled and returned to his task, which quickly revealed itself to be harder than he'd thought it would be. He had to figure out Bruce's insurance, find out which mental health care providers took it, and then which ones were accepting new patients...and then to find out which of those were located nearby, and which ones seemed good. He wasn't going to send Bruce to just _anybody_. 

(It did, of course, occur to him that he could just pay out of pocket for whatever Bruce needed, but he was afraid Bruce would be resistant to the idea if he found out. Tony was only belatedly realizing how unusual it had been for Bruce to ask Tony for help securing externships for his students last semester--but then, Bruce would do anything for his students, even if he apparently wouldn't ask for help for himself. So Tony wanted to make this process as painless as possible for Bruce, who was clearly in enough pain.)

Tony made a decent list of offices to call in the morning and decided to spend a few hours tinkering in his workshop before bed. But he got caught up in his project and never made it to bed. Pepper found him there when she came in at 8 AM.

“You didn’t sleep last night, did you?”

“I...made a real breakthrough!”

She sighed. “I don’t suppose you’ve made any progress on your presentation for the shareholders meeting?” Tony squinted at her, and she prompted, “The shareholders meeting next Friday? For you to convince them that you’re still competent to lead SI?”

“Ohh, right. Well, I can’t go next Friday, can you reschedule it?”

“Are you serious right now? What do you mean you can’t go? What on earth could be more important?”

“The academic decathlon team made it to Nationals. It starts next Friday. I told you.”

“Academic decathlon? I took that off your calendar. Tony, with all your travel time, you already finished your 100 hours of community service. Dr. Foster signed off on all your paperwork. You don’t have to do that anymore. Remember?”

“No, yeah, I know, but, Pepper, they made it to Nationals! You want me to give up on them now? They need me! C’mon, I’m sure you can spin this into something good. I can send you cute team pictures!”

She shook her head, but there was a hint of a smile on her lips. “I will...see what I can do.”

She left to go do what she did best, and Tony came to a stopping point on his work and went up to his office to start calling therapists’ offices. He hung up on one particularly unhelpful receptionist and saw Pepper standing in the doorway.

“Oh, Tony, I’m so glad you’re finally getting some help!”

“What?”

“Oh...I’m sorry if I wasn’t supposed to overhear that, but honestly, therapy is great. I don’t think I could have lasted a month at this job without my therapist. Just make sure to let me know when you schedule something, so I can put it on your calendar.”

“Well, uh, thanks for that, but I was actually trying to make an appointment for Bruce.”

“Ohh. _Bruce_ ,” she said knowingly.

“He’s just going through a really hard time so I said I’d try to help…”

“Well, that’s very sweet of you, even though I’m not sure you have time for that. But also, really, please think about making one of those appointments for yourself. I think it would be so helpful for you to have someone to talk to about everything.... I mean, your accident, the pressures of your job...your drinking...you know, just, life...”

“I have you!” 

“Mm, that’s all a little above my pay grade. Just try it once, Tony, okay? And if you hate it you can just walk out, no one has to know. But you owe me.”

“For what?”

“I got the shareholders meeting rescheduled, for three weeks from today. But I’ll warn you, the board isn’t happy, so your presentation had better be _dazzling_.”

“Pepper! Have I ever failed to dazzle?”

“On rare occasions,” she replied with a smile.

Tony eventually succeeded in making an appointment for Bruce, and one for himself while he was at it, if it would make Pepper happy. She _was_ usually right about things, after all. He only had to engage in very light name-dropping (and moderate guilt-tripping) to get appointments scheduled for the following day. Feeling productive, he texted Bruce and Thor, then went back to his workshop. He woke up in the middle of the afternoon, on the workshop's worn-out couch with a sweatshirt tucked over him. He didn’t remember how he got there, but he did feel better-rested.

He poured himself a drink and got back to work, somehow passing the hours until the next morning, when Happy took him to pick up Bruce and take him to therapy. Tony’s own appointment was at a different office later in the day, so he just sat in the waiting room, scrolling through his phone until Bruce came back out, his eyes clearly red from crying.

“How’d it go? Was she nice? If she wasn't nice, I'll ruin her career. Just say the word.”

Bruce laughed and nodded. “She was nice. Thanks, Tony.”

Tony was dying to know details, but he was trying not to press Bruce, who was shy even at his best. Instead, Tony convinced Bruce to come out for lunch afterward, and he filled Bruce in on how academic decathlon practice was going without him, heavy on mentions of how much they all missed him.

Bruce just shook his head and ate his salad.

Finally, Tony asked outright, “You’re really not coming to Nationals with us? Not even after….” He made a vague hand gesture.

Bruce blinked. Incredulously, he asked, “Did you really think one therapy session was going to be enough to change my mind about going on a very stressful trip with a group of students, when that kind of stress triggers my PTSD and causes severe mood swings?”

Tony kind of _had_ thought that, or at least hoped it, but he mumbled, “Well, when you put it like that…”

Bruce shook his head. “It just wouldn’t be responsible, Tony. I...I really do thank you for setting this up for me, and I see now how badly I’ve been spiraling since I got back. I...yeah. I shouldn't have waited so long to get back into therapy. But it’s...I just can’t do it, Tony, I can’t even imagine it. I’m sorry. I...I’m sure you could get a parent volunteer. Or Dr. Foster might go, or another teacher. But I can’t.”

“Okay. Well...you have a week to change your mind.”

“I won’t,” Bruce said firmly. “And if I do, you shouldn’t listen to me. But good luck, really.”

“Will you at least come to practice next Thursday? Maybe give one last pep talk? The kids would love to see you.”

Bruce dragged his fork around his empty plate. “Maybe. I’ll think about it.”

“Good enough,” Tony said with a falsely bright smile.

They took Bruce home and then Tony had his own appointment, which was weird. He normally loved to talk, but he struggled to answer Dr. Yinsen’s most basic questions. He was assigned homework before his next session, which he somehow decided to schedule, even though he'd only promised Pepper one visit.

Thursday rolled around and Tony texted Bruce. _Practice today?_

After an agonizing wait for a response, Bruce replied, _Sorry. Can’t. Tell them I said good luck! [four-leaf clover emoji]_

_Will do. Take care. ♥_

Tony poured a lot of emotion into that single heart emoji. He felt very teenage in that moment but he wasn't sure how else to express all the concern and care he felt for Bruce.

After another very long pause, Bruce replied: _♥_

Tony smiled and went to deliver his bad news to the team, who were understandably dispirited by the loss of their fearless leader. Tony knew just how they felt. Still, Tony managed to give what he was pretty sure were conclusive instructions on where and when they were meeting to leave for DC. He collected permission slips and distributed snacks.

On Friday, he got the team on the bus to DC, checked them all in, and correctly interpreted the schedule. He gathered them and said, “I know you all miss Br--Dr. Banner, and I do too, but we’ll all just have to do our best without him. And I know I didn’t join your team under ideal circumstances, but I’m so glad to be here with you. No matter what happens here at Nationals, I’m so grateful to be here with you all, and--“

“And we taught you more than you taught us?” MJ suggested drily. 

“No, of course not, I was already extremely smart. Anyway...let’s just try to have fun? And no matter what, I’ll be proud of you. And I know Dr. Banner will be too. So why don’t we go show these punks from,” he consulted the schedule, “North Carolina, how we do things in New York?”

The team managed a halfhearted cheer, and they went off to the match. Unfortunately, it turned out that how they did things in North Carolina was actually way better than how they did them in New York, at least, academic decathlon-wise. IHA was roundly defeated by North Carolina’s challenger, a STEM magnet school from Durham.

“Okay, well, you guys tried your best,” Tony said. “It’s okay, there are still a lot of matches this weekend! Room for growth!”

And the team did manage to rally and scrape out a few close victories, but not enough. They were all clearly discouraged and distracted, and Tony wasn’t sure how to help. His best pep talks and cookies weren’t working, so over dinner, he texted Bruce:

_Any chance you can video chat with us?? The kids really miss you and I think any words of wisdom you have to offer could really help._

_I have no wisdom._

_Of course you do. Please? Just one minute even._

_Fine, let me shower._

_:)_

Just before the kids disbanded to sulk in the hotel pool, Bruce popped up on Tony’s phone. His hair was damp and he seemed nervous, but he’d shaved and he looked healthier, clearly better rested than he had the last time Tony had seen him.

The kids exploded into a chorus of excited greetings and “we miss you”s and Bruce waited on the line in sheepish silence until they quieted down.

Finally, he cleared his throat and said, “Hey everybody, it’s really good to see you. I miss you all and I’m really sorry I can’t be there with you, but I’m so proud of you! I, um, you all know I’m not great at speeches, but, um, just do your best. I’m proud of you no matter what.”

MJ took the phone from Tony and asked, “Dr. Banner, if we vote Flash off the team, will you come back?” Other kids murmured approvingly behind her.

Horrified, Bruce said, “No! You can’t just vote him off the team, this isn’t Survivor! And is that what--you think I left the school because of Flash?”

“I mean, yeah, and I don’t blame you, he’s kind of a tool.”

“MJ!”

“Well, he is.”

“No! I like and care about all of you. And I’ve already apologized privately to Flash, but I’m so sorry I lost my temper with him and I’m so sorry if any of you thought I left IHA because of you.” Bruce rubbed his forehead, and the other students packed closely around the phone to hear what he had to say. “The truth is just that, well, I don’t really like to talk about this, but I don’t want you blaming yourselves, or each other, so I’ll just say that, uh, I have complex post-traumatic stress disorder, from, um, stuff that happened a long time ago, and, um, with all my extra classes to teach, I just wasn’t taking care of myself, and, well, none of it has anything to do with any of you, okay?”

Tony wanted to crawl through the phone and hug Bruce. 

MJ narrowed her eyes. “Are you saying the school wasn’t accommodating your disability? You should sue.”

Bruce laughed. “I really miss you, MJ. Why don’t you get through Nationals first and when you get back we can talk about legal actions, okay?”

“I’m starting a petition,” she said.

“Thanks, MJ. Goodbye, everybody!”

“Wait!” Darcy cried. She grabbed the phone from MJ and loudly whispered, “Dr. B., just wanted you to know that Mr. Stark is still single and he _really_ misses you.”

Bruce laughed again. Tony loved hearing that sound, even as he resented being the source of it in that way. His tone amused and resigned, Bruce said, “Thanks, Darcy, for your highly inappropriate input.”

“You’re welcome!” She hung up on Bruce and passed the phone back to Tony. “Thanks, Mr. Stark, I feel extremely motivated now.”

"That is messed up, though," MJ said. "I mean, obviously the whole thing about them closing our school was some racist gerrymandering bullshit, but I kinda didn't even think about how hard it would be on the teachers."

"Yeah, and Dr. Banner is like, the nicest teacher ever," Ned said.

Peter added, "No offense, Mr. Stark, not that you're not nice, but you're like, not actually a teacher?"

Tony just shook his head. “None taken. I’ll be checking on you all around 11 tonight. And I’m way meaner than Dr. Banner so don’t even think about sneaking out.”

Alone in his hotel room, Tony half-heartedly worked on his presentation for the SI shareholders. It wasn't like him to work on something like this so far in advance, but he knew Pepper would murder him if he didn't put in some work on it. He knew he had good stuff--the self-driving car itself, for one. And once he’d gotten to the bottom of the car’s sabotage, he’d figured out a way to spin that into a positive. His former intern Maya had technically been the saboteur, but she’d been poached by Aldrich Killian of Advanced Idea Mechanics and done the work on AIM's behalf. Matt was pursuing legal action against AIM, and it seemed to be going smoothly, but Maya’s defection still stung. Tony proposed a revamped internship program, to really nurture young talent and, hopefully, keep them on at SI. He was excited about the program but bored at the idea of convincing the shareholders and the board that it was a good idea. 

Satisfied with his progress, he closed the presentation and pulled out the homework he’d gotten from Dr. Yinsen. It was a worksheet, like a kindergartener would get. It asked him to keep track of how he spent his time, and to rate each activity by how important Tony thought it was and also how much he enjoyed it. He gave academic decathlon a 7 for importance and a 5 for enjoyment, though it would have been higher if Bruce were there. He gave the SI presentation a 5 for importance and a 2 for enjoyment. He gave filling out the homework a 1 for both. Then he noticed the time and went to check on the kids. They were all in their rooms for the moment, eyes glued to their phones, but that seemed normal. 

Tony texted Bruce, _Just wanted you to know that I checked on the kids and they’re all fine. Wish you were here though._

He’d almost given up hope of a response when Bruce finally replied, _Wish I was there too. Thanks for taking such good care of the kids. And of me._

 _Any time. Good night! ♥_

_Good night! ♥_

Tony smiled at Bruce's matching emoji and tried to get some sleep before the second day of competition. 

At breakfast the next morning, MJ said, off-handedly, “Hey, so, we were researching New York’s educational code last night and we think we figured out a way to get our schools back.”

“Oh?” Tony asked. 

“Yeah, so, this jackoff Mr. Thanos--no offense Gamora and Nebula--“

“None taken,” the twins chorused. 

“--So, the mayor is supposed to be in charge of our school system, and the schools chancellor is like, the backup, along with the school board. But the state senate has to officially give the mayor control every year, and this year there was some other dumb bullshit happening in Albany and they just let the mayoral control lapse because they couldn't come to an agreement on charter schools. So enter Mr. Thanos, the schools chancellor taking control, but it was supposed to be a short-term thing, but he invoked a state of emergency clause to get all this power to do whatever he wanted. But a state of emergency is only supposed to last for 30 days or less, barring extraordinary circumstances, which, these aren’t really, and it doesn’t seem like he’s even made any kind of proper case that they are, he’s just assuming that the State Senate is too busy to like, follow up on this.”

“Also he’s spent years convincing his friends to run for school board,” Nebula said. 

"He's such a dick," Gamora said. "He's spent all this time doing this stuff but he couldn't be bothered to pay child support to our mom for, like, years."

“Ugh, _men_!” MJ said. “But, if we can get a majority of the parents and guardians of the student body to sign a petition, we can force the mayor to audit his decisions and I just don’t think they’ll hold up. And that’ll place pressure on the state legislature to give control back to the mayor again.”

“I cannot believe this is how your government works,” Shuri said. 

“Hey, we can’t all be from benevolent techno-monarchies,” Darcy replied. 

“Anyway, it’ll help our case if we can collect evidence of how bad things are with the combined schools, and I think Dr. Banner’s nervous breakdown is a great piece of evidence,” MJ said. 

“I mean, it’s not great that it happened,” Peter said quickly. 

“No, right, of course not. But also we can just take pictures of how crowded our classrooms are and all of that stuff,” MJ said. “And I’m sure it’s impacting standardized test scores. We obviously have a great case, we just have to get it out there and make them listen to us.”

Confidently, Stephen said, "This is it. This is our best possible chance to save the schools."

“Wow, okay, that’s all very interesting,” Tony said. “I don’t suppose you did any sleeping or preparing for academic decathlon last night…?”

“This is more important!” MJ said. 

“We were all in our rooms by 11,” Peter said. “But our rooms have WiFi.”

“Okay, well...drink your coffee, I guess?” Tony sighed.

“We’re full of righteous anger, that’s better than sleep,” Darcy said.

Their youthful outrage energy carried them into a win for their first match of the day, against Chicago Latin School, but as the morning went on, the kids were clearly all flagging, and by lunchtime they were 1-2. Tony consulted the bracket and saw that there was no way for them to place first now; he didn’t say anything but he was sure the young geniuses could figure it out.

But at lunch, they didn’t seem disappointed. They were too excited about their plan to save their schools, and their teacher. Tony smiled and listened to them reading drafts of petitions and excerpts from school and state policies to each other. They really were an impressive bunch of kids, even if, at the end of the day, they placed 9th in the tournament.

Tony wasn't used to losing, but after the awards ceremony, he found that he meant it when he said, “Hey, 9th place is still very good. We beat 41 other states. Also, you tried your best. To overthrow the government. And you tried pretty hard at academic decathlon after all that. So...I’m really proud of you, and I know Dr. Banner will be too.”

“He’ll be even prouder when we get his classroom back for him,” Darcy said.

“I’m sure he will.” Tony checked the time. “There’s still about an hour and a half before our bus will be ready. You all can have some free time if you want to explore or anything, just meet back here by 6:30 or we will leave without you.”

MJ said, “I think we’re just going to get some pizza. You want to come with us, Mr. Stark?”

Tony smiled, trying to hide how excited he actually was to have finally won over MJ. “Sure.”

“You’re paying, though,” she added. 

“I think I can swing that.”

Over mediocre pizza, Shuri turned to Tony and said, “By the way, Mr. Stark, I have been wanting to say...I believe Darcy and I owe you an apology.” Darcy winced and nodded.

“Oh? For what?”

“Well, do you remember, after that tournament in the fall, I think at Brooklyn Latin, when you tried to ask Dr. Banner out for coffee?”

Tony narrowed his eyes. “Yes.”

“We kind of cockblocked you, sorry,” Darcy said bluntly.

“I’m sorry?”

“Well--I suppose you did not see us, but we were standing behind you, and, ah…” Shuri trailed off.

“We were excited! We were trying to encourage Dr. Banner! To say yes! But I think we spooked him,” Darcy said contritely.

“Ah. He’s pretty easily spooked. But thanks for trying to encourage him,” Tony said with a smile.

“We’ve got your back, Mr. Stark,” Darcy promised.

“I appreciate that, but in the future, maybe have it from afar?”

“Roger that,” Darcy said. “But you are going to try again, aren’t you?”

“Dr. Banner is a good match for you, Mr. Stark,” Shuri said. “He is very smart and kind.”

“And pretty cute, for an old guy,” Darcy added. 

“He and I are the same age, Darcy.”

“Mm-hmm.”

Shortly after that revelation, they all got on the bus and made it back to New York uneventfully. By the time Tony got settled in his workshop, the academic decathlon kids had stuffed his inbox with ideas for the school board meeting. Tony smiled as he read them, and wondered if he should tell Bruce. But he didn’t want to get Bruce’s hopes up, since he wasn’t sure how much these kids could actually accomplish, even though their enthusiasm was very touching.

Instead, he texted Bruce, _Made it home from DC. The team came in 9th. I’m really proud of them._

Bruce replied promptly, _9th is great! Congratulations! Thanks for being there with them._

Tony smiled and replied, _BTW, Shuri and Darcy said they thought they "cockblocked" me the last time I tried to ask you out, at that tournament in the fall, back when we were on different teams [crying laughing emoji]_

_Ha, yeah, I remember. They kind of did, actually [grimacing emoji] Just felt weird about them being there for that conversation._

Tony raised his eyebrows. _So what if I were to ask you out on a date now? They’re not here._

_It would be VERY weird if they were._

Tony almost threw his phone in frustration. _So? Can I take you out to dinner? Maybe tomorrow?_

He stared at the endless _..._ for an eternity. Finally, a reply popped up:

_Tony, I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me and for the team, and I really do care about you and maybe one day yes I would like to go on a date with you, I’d really like to, but it’s not a good time for me, I’m...you know how I am. I’m sorry._

Tony took his time before replying, _Will you let me know when you are ready?_

It took Bruce a ridiculously long time to type, simply: _OK._

Tony sighed. He forced himself to remember how angry and scared and sad Bruce had been feeling, how much pain there had been in his eyes the last time Tony had gone to see him. Tony supposed this was a better answer than some things Bruce might have said, though it was hardly the enthusiastic response he'd have preferred. Tony set aside his hurt pride to respond:

_Can I take you out for dinner tomorrow anyway? Not as a date, just as two colleagues discussing a successful academic decathlon season?_

_OK :)_

Invigorated by the smiley face, Tony asked, _I’ll pick you up at 7?_

 _OK. Thanks. Good night! ♥_

_Good night! ♥_

Tony put in several hours in his workshop before actually going to sleep, and on Sunday he agreed to join the academic decathlon team in going door to door, getting signatures for their petition to the mayor. Tony was very successful in getting signatures, but slower than the kids, because pretty much every petition signer wanted a selfie with him. Still, he was cheered by their collective progress. 

He parted ways with the kids to pick up Bruce for dinner. Bruce looked more well-rested than he had the last time Tony saw him, and less sad, though he still seemed spacey and shy. Still, Bruce clearly enjoyed Tony’s carefully edited academic decathlon recap. And when Tony dropped him off for the night, Bruce gave him an unexpectedly long hug. 

For the next few days, Tony felt cautiously optimistic about the way everything was going. The kids' petition surpassed its required number of signatures; his presentation for the shareholders was in flawless, Pepper-approved shape; Bruce continued to text him heart emojis; and Dr. Yinsen actually helped him come to some very interesting conclusions about his therapy homework.

Then MJ excitedly forwarded an email from the office of the mayor, calling for a special, public school board meeting to air their grievances and confront the Chancellor of Schools. It was good news--exactly what they’d been hoping for--but the date looked familiar to Tony. He checked his calendar and realized with a sinking heart that it was the same night as the rescheduled SI shareholders meeting.

He stuck his head in Pepper’s office. “Hey Pep?”

“Yes?” she asked, her tone suspicious. Tony rarely dropped by her office without an ulterior motive.

“Well, scale of 1 to 10...how hard would it be to re-reschedule that shareholders meeting?”

“Are you kidding me? I don’t know, a 20? It was almost impossible to get them to reschedule it the first time, and then you had those cute baby nerds going for you. What’s your excuse this time?”

Tony told her all about the school board plan, and then concluded, “But also, I just really don’t want to.”

“Jesus Christ, you have got to be kidding me.”

“I’m not. You know what? I took your advice and saw a therapist and he helped me understand something I’ve been struggling with for a long time. I _hate_ being CEO of SI.”

“You _love_ SI. SI is your baby.”

Tony shook his head. “My designs are my babies, not the company. The company was my dad's baby. I love inventing, designing, building. I fucking hate meetings. I’m bad at negotiating, compromising...all the things that you’re great at." And then Tony felt a moment of clarity crystalize, and it was so obvious he couldn't believe he'd never thought of it before. " _You_ should be CEO, Pepper.”

She laughed. “You can’t just promote your personal assistant to CEO, Tony.”

“Um, yes I can, I’m the CEO, I can do whatever I want.”

“You’re serious?”

“You want the job? It’s yours.”

“If you want to go to this school thing that badly, I’m sure I can get the board to reschedule again. I was exaggerating about it being a 20.”

“Nope, I don’t want to. I want you to go, as CEO.”

“But...what will you do?”

“I’ll go to the school board meeting.”

“I mean, for a job.”

“Oh, we’ll make up some appropriately fancy title for me, Chief Technology Officer or something. President of Awesome Stuff, maybe? Something where I don’t have to go to meetings.”

Pepper gave him a long look. “You’re going to have to call Matt and ask him to draw up some contracts. If I do it, it’ll sound like a coup. And the board will never approve this.”

“The board will definitely approve it; they've wanted me gone for so long, they'll take anyone, especially someone as obviously talented as you are. I'm going to call Matt right now, but in the meantime, you’d better order some new business cards for yourself, Ms. Potts.” 

Pepper shook her head and smiled. But her smile faded when Matt and Karen showed up two hours later with a stack of paperwork.

“Seriously, Tony, this is…it's very sudden.” She whispered, “You’re not thinking about killing yourself or something, are you?”

“Nope, I am of sound mind, it says so right here,” Tony said cheerfully, pointing at a page. “Seriously, I should have done this a long time ago. I mean, I inherited this company when I was 19, became fully invested as CEO at 21? I never had the chance to think about what I actually wanted to do. But it turns out, it’s not this. But you! You’ll be so great at it." He studied her face. "Oh, did you want some time to think about it? I don’t want you to be trapped into this, like I was. We can do it later.”

She shook her head and took the papers from him with a smile. “Tell me where to sign!”

Matt and Karen talked them through the paperwork, and by lunchtime, Pepper Potts was the CEO of SI and Tony Stark was a free man. The New York City Department of Education wasn't going to know what hit them.


	7. Livin' La Vida Loca

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy US Father's Day to everyone except Brian Banner and Howard Stark!

Bruce settled into his usual spot on the couch in his new therapist's office. Automatically, he reached for a Rubik's cube from the basket of fidget toys Claire kept for her patients. Bruce found it easier to talk when his hands were occupied.

He liked Claire; she was kind, but no-nonsense. And she understood perfectly when he slipped into mangled Spanglish, usually when he was remembering Peace Corps stories for her. He'd only seen her a few times but he already had a much better understanding of how much he'd minimized the effects of transition back to life in the US had actually affected him, how often he'd been dissociating, and how bad he'd been at reaching out for help when the stress in his life had overwhelmed him. Bruce couldn't believe he'd managed to go so many months without finding a therapist, and he was so grateful that Tony had helped him find Claire.

With her usual warm smile, Claire asked, "Hi, Bruce, how've you been?"

"Okay," he said thoughtfully.

"Anything on your mind?"

"Tony Stark asked me out. On a date," he blurted out. She'd already heard a lot about Tony: about Bruce's frustrations co-coaching with him, about unexpectedly kind Tony had been when Bruce needed it most, about how Tony had actually been the one to make Bruce's first appointment with Claire. But so far he hadn't explicitly mentioned his attraction to Tony, or Tony's previous romantic overtures. Bruce hadn't been quite sure if Tony would still be interested in him that way, not after he'd seen him melt down so horribly.

"And how do you feel about that?"

"I...I mean, I like him, a lot, and it's...good to know that he likes me, I mean...he, um, he's been, he's let me know that. Before. But now he's seen...what a mess I am, and he still asked?"

Claire nodded, a faint smile on her lips. "Well, what did you tell him?"

"Well...I told him...that I was interested...but it wasn't a good time. And he said okay and that we could get dinner as a non-date...But...I said that and the thing is, I don't know if it will ever be a good time. I don't know if I'll ever be ready to date anyone, let alone someone as amazing as Tony. I...I'm still figuring stuff out, I guess."

"What do you need to figure out?"

"I…" Bruce trailed off, aggressively twisting the Rubik’s cube. He was so ashamed of what he was about to say. He didn't want Claire to think badly of him. But she waited patiently, and finally Bruce gave voice to his ultimate worst case scenario and near-whispered, "What if I...hit him?"

Claire's voice was sympathetic, not shocked, when she replied, "Oh, Bruce. Well, in some ways that is a valid concern--as I'm sure you know, children who were raised in abusive households sometimes do grow up to repeat that cycle of violence, unfortunately. But tell me, have you ever hit anyone?"

"Yes," Bruce said with anguish. He'd already told her about that; he didn't want to talk about it again right now. All he'd learned from it was that fighting back made things worse.

After a pause, Claire said, "I'm sorry. I meant, have you ever hit anyone who hadn't hit you--or your mother--first?"

Bruce shook his head no. He dropped his gaze to the floor and confessed, "But...but I think about it sometimes. I mean, not Tony specifically, but...just in general. Like I--I told you about, you know, imagining kicking over the desks. And everything."

"Can I tell you a secret?"

Bruce nodded.

She leaned in and said," _Everybody_ thinks about stuff like that sometimes."

Bruce crossed his arms. "Really? I mean like…" Bruce trailed off. He'd heard other people say things along these lines, but he didn't think they meant it the way he felt it sometimes. He thought they were probably just joking. He'd wondered but he'd been too afraid to ask. Tony was the first person in whom Bruce been interested in seriously enough to risk asking these kinds of questions, even in the safe confines of a therapist's office.

Claire offered a small smile. "I suppose I shouldn't make blanket statements like that. There are probably a few people living on a commune somewhere who don't ever. But I would say yes, most people do, from time to time. For example, just about every morning on the train...before I've had my coffee...if I hear somebody listening to music on their phone without headphones, I think about smacking that phone right out of their hands and throwing it out the door at our next stop. I mean, I can just _feel_ how satisfying it would be to do it. But do you know how often I've actually done that?"

"Never?" Bruce supposed she wouldn't have her job if she'd done it. And she wasn't the type of person who would say things just to make Bruce feel better, not if she didn't mean them.

Claire nodded. "That's right. And I'm pretty sure I never will. It's just a little coping mechanism that gets me through my day. Those and noise-cancelling headphones."

Bruce twisted the Rubik’s cube and thought about that. He ventured, "After I snapped at practice, Tony told me that I can't control what I think, I can only control what I do."

"Hmm. To some extent, I would agree with that. You maybe can't control your immediate thoughts, immediate responses to things. But you can redirect your thoughts. You can have strategies in place to evaluate your thoughts, and to change them if you don't like where they're going. Kind of like mental noise cancelling headphones."

"Right." Some of this was familiar from Bruce's previous rounds of therapy, but he definitely needed the refresher. Though his previous therapists had assured Bruce that his responses were normal for someone with his past, part of him had still feared that Claire would declare him a monster for this revelation. Instead, she talked him through some anger management techniques and cognitive behavior therapy strategies: easy, concrete things that Bruce could do when he felt overwhelmed.

When their time was nearly up, Bruce asked, shyly, "So...do you think I should, um, go on a date with him?"

She smiled. "I think that's up to you, Bruce. Based on what I've heard, it does seem like you both care about each other, and you've both been pretty open about your feelings, and that's a great starting place for a relationship. But you don't owe him anything--if you don't feel interested in pursuing a romantic relationship with him, right now, or ever, that's completely valid, too. But if the only thing standing between you and him right now is your fear of lashing out, of physically hurting him...I think that's an understandable fear, given your upbringing, but I don't think it is a _rational_ fear, I don't think it is one that is grounded in anything that is actually likely to come to pass, in my professional opinion. Okay?"

Flooded with relief, Bruce nodded. "Okay. Yeah. Thanks."

"Hey, you solved it!"

"Hmm?" Bruce asked. Then he looked down at the Rubik’s cube, its colored squares all tamed into orderly rows. "Oh, yeah, I guess I did."

She walked him to the door and said, "Hey, these were some big feelings we talked about today. I'm proud of you and I wish you luck, whatever you decide to do."

"Thanks," Bruce mumbled. "I'll see you next week."

Bruce turned these thoughts over in his mind as he biked home, enjoying the warm May weather. (It had been hard for him to convince Tony that he actually did enjoy the bike ride and didn't need rides to therapy, although he appreciated Tony's concern.) He carried his bike up and decided to sit up on the roof and read for awhile. When he came back inside, he did a double-take at seeing his former boss sitting on the couch. Thor was sitting next to her with his arm around her, though when Bruce entered the living room, Thor un-sneakily pulled his hand away and sat up straight.

Hmm. Well, Bruce had always liked Dr. Foster well enough. He supposed it wasn't the worst thing if she started dating his roommate.

"Oh! Uh...hi...Dr. Foster…" Bruce stammered.

She smiled. "Would you please call me Jane already? I'm sorry to startle you, it's just that, well, it's been kind of hard to get ahold of you by phone. Or email. And I just needed to talk to you about something. Thor, would you mind giving us a minute?"

"Of course!" Thor said cheerfully. He retreated to his bedroom and shut the door.

Bruce watched him go, then turned to Jane and said, "Okay…"

"It's good to see you, Bruce. How have you been?"

"Better. Uh...what's going on? I...I heard you didn't accept my resignation, but I...did resign." Bruce twisted his hands together and forced himself to think rational thoughts. She couldn't _make_ him go back to work. She couldn't. Bruce would be fine. He'd saved most of his Peace Corps readjustment allowance when he first came back, and he could live off of that for awhile when his PTO ran out. He could defer his student loans. He could move to Colombia. He could become a farmer. He could be a barista. He counted his breaths and reminded himself that he had options. 

Jane's smile faltered. "No, I know, I...I don't blame you. I was just trying to give you some space to...change your mind, if you wanted, but I...I understand your decision. Completely. No, I, um, I just...I didn't know if you'd heard about the upcoming special school board meeting?"

"No. Why would I? I don't work for the school anymore."

"No, right, of course, it's just, um. Well, I...I understand that Tony and the academic decathlon kids wanted this to be a surprise, but--"

"What? I hate surprises."

"No, I know, exactly, me too, so that's why I wanted to tell you."

"Tell me what?"

"The special school board meeting, it was called to make the school board and the mayor reevaluate all the school closures and new student enrollments, you know, the whole situation."

"That's good…"

"Yes! I think so too. And it's really very admirable, it was Tony and the academic decathlon kids who made them call it, they were so organized and they got so many signatures on their petition."

"Really?" Bruce had texted with Tony pretty regularly over the last few weeks, even met him in person a few times, and Tony hadn't mentioned any of this. Of course, Jane had said it was meant to be a surprise. Right.

"Yes! But, so, at the meeting, everyone is sharing these statements about how the school closures affected them, and, um, they have to submit the statements to me to be approved before sharing them at the meeting, and, um, a lot of them are kind of about you, and I...I wanted to run that by you first."

Bruce swallowed. "About me?"

Jane nodded, her expression kind. "I mean, in a favorable way, but your team, your students...they were very affected by realizing how overworked you were and how stressed you were, and...and they want to talk about that. But I know you...value privacy, and I...well, so, I haven't approved any of their statements yet. Because I wanted to talk to you first."

Bruce licked his lips and shook his head. "No, I, uh, I appreciate that, but...but they can say whatever they want. It affected them, too." He'd spent years tiptoeing around his father's wrath, silencing himself because anything he said would probably turn out to be wrong. He didn't want to make anyone else feel that way.

"Are you sure? I can show you…I think that would be fair."

He held up his hand. "No, no, I don't want to censor them. I know they mean well, and even if they don't, it's their right."

"They definitely all do mean well," she said. "But, okay, if you're sure, I'll approve their statements. And then, um, the other thing I wanted to ask was, if you'd want to share anything at the meeting yourself?"

Bruce shook his head no, before Jane even finished asking. "No, no thank you." He couldn't imagine getting up in front of all those people and talking about anything, let alone about one of the worst moments of his adult life.

"Are you sure? You certainly have a good case to make. You could also write a statement and send it, and I'll read it on your behalf?"

"Oh. Um. Maybe?" Bruce knew he couldn't set foot in that school again, but maybe he could write about it...he felt his breaths grow shallow. Maybe he couldn't. He forced himself to count his breaths...4, 7, 8…

"Oh, Bruce, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you," Jane said. "I just thought you should know."

"No...no, it's okay, it's okay, it's just, um. Um, I'll think about it, okay? When is it?"

"It's next Tuesday, but I'll need to finalize the agenda by next Monday. A week from today."

"Right. Okay. Um...I'll email you? If I think of something to say?"

She smiled. "Okay. Well, I hope you do, but if you don't...well, honestly, there's already an extremely good case. Your team did great work."

Bruce managed a small smile. "Of course they did."

Jane knocked on Thor's bedroom door, and he emerged with a smile. "Bruce! Will you be joining us for pub trivia?"

"I, ah, didn't ask him that part yet," Jane said.

"He knows it is a standing invitation!"

Bruce sighed. "No, um, maybe next time? I...I have a lot to think about."

"Next time, then!" Thor agreed cheerfully, undeterred by his long-running streak of rejections.

"But, uh, good luck, though!" he added.

"We're the reigning champs," Jane said.

"We have much to live up to!" Thor agreed. 

Hand in hand, Thor and Jane walked off to pub trivia, leaving Bruce alone, staring at a blank computer screen. He thought about texting Tony, but if Tony wanted the school board thing to be a surprise, maybe Bruce shouldn't let on that he knew? But maybe he should submit a statement?

While he was thinking about that, his phone lit up with a text from Tony. 

_Hey, you busy?_

Bruce looked at his phone, then back at his blank document. 

_Not really. Why?_

_Can I talk through a design with you? I'm stuck on something but I bet you can figure it out…_

Bruce shook his head. _Yeah, I'm sure a former high school physics teacher can crack a problem that Tony Stark can't. [eyeroll emoji]_

_I'm sure, too, that's why I asked. I'll pick you up in half an hour._

Bruce laughed aloud. He texted back, _OK!_ , and went to survey himself in the mirror, just to make sure he was presentable. Not that it was a date. Tony was just excited that he'd gotten his driver's license restored and was looking for excuses to drive somewhere. 

Tony had done this kind of thing before, insisting that Bruce alone could help him solve some impossible problem. Bruce thought that Tony mostly liked an audience for his own genius, but Bruce understood that there was some value to simply talking your way through a problem, even if the person listening just nodded encouragingly. He used to help his students that way all the time, and he was happy to offer that service to Tony.

Tony picked Bruce up exactly thirty minutes later and took him to Stark Tower. In Tony's workshop, he talked Bruce through his design. Bruce didn't even understand half of it but apparently one of his clarifying questions made Tony figure out the flaw.

Tony's eyes lit up, and he said, "You're a genius, Bruce!"

Bruce laughed and rolled his eyes, but he didn't think he could ever get tired of being the reason Tony made that delighted face. He liked to watch Tony work; he looked so cute with his tongue between his teeth, eyebrows furrowed in concentration. Then, abruptly, Tony finished his work and focused all that attention on Bruce. "Now, I've got to buy you dinner, to thank you for all your help."

"You don't have to. I'm happy to help, even if I'm still not quite sure what I did…"

Tony smiled and said, "Well, I want to," and Bruce found he couldn't argue with that, not when Tony already had his arm around Bruce's shoulders and was walking him to the car.

After dinner, Tony dropped Bruce off at home, and in the moment before he got out of the car, Bruce wanted to blurt out that he was ready to date Tony, that he wanted to kiss Tony, that he wanted to _be with_ Tony. But his words caught in his throat, and instead he said, "Well--thanks for the ride, good night!" and bolted inside.

Over the course of the week, Bruce worked slowly on his statement for the school board. He took long bike rides and updated his resume and went on another not-date with Tony. He felt more and more sure that soon, he would be ready to tell Tony how he felt. Just...not yet.

On Monday morning, he emailed his statement to Jane and thanked her for her help. Monday afternoon, he went to therapy and told Claire all about the school board situation. She listened and _hmm_ -ed and told him that she hoped that the school board would listen and re-open the schools. She reminded him of strategies he could use if he started to feel overwhelmed, no matter what the school board decided.

He left the session feeling cautiously optimistic, but he took an extra-long, meandering route home, to make sure that Thor and Jane would already have left for pub trivia by the time he got back to the apartment. He still needed some quiet time to process everything he was feeling.

Tuesday morning, Bruce awoke feeling filled with dread. He wished he could fast forward to tomorrow, or whenever the school board would make their decision. He just wanted it all to be over with. He hoped, for the sake of the kids, of his colleagues, that they would see reason, but it was hard to feel optimistic.

Early that evening, the apartment's buzzer rang. "Hey, it's me," Tony called.

Bruce met him at the door. Tony looked unfairly handsome in a suit that was undoubtedly custom-tailored. "Hi?" Bruce said. Bruce was happy to see him, despite his awareness that Tony was almost certainly here to try to drag him to the school board meeting.

Tony smiled. "Hi. What are you doing tonight?"

"I was planning on a wild night out, hitting up all the clubs," Bruce said drily.

Tony lifted an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

"No, of course not, I'll be staying in and watching Star Trek."

"Oh. Well...what about...coming to the school board meeting?"

Bruce shook his head. "No, Tony."

"Wait, but...the kids have been working really hard on something, they--"

"I know, Jane told me about it."

"Oh. We wanted it to be a surprise!"

"I hate surprises!"

"Mmm. In that case...hey...want to come to this completely unsurprising but very important event that you already knew about?" Tony asked, his tone playful.

"Tony, no, I'm sorry, I can't. I...I'm so proud of you and the kids for everything you did, but, I, when I think about setting foot in that school, I, I can't…"

"Oh...okay, hey, Bruce, just breathe," Tony said, his voice now soft and reassuring as Bruce fought to breathe. Tony put a hand on Bruce's shoulder. "Okay, good, you're fine."

Bruce caught his breath and nodded. "Thanks," he said softly.

Tony bit his lip. "I'm sorry to have bothered you. I...I'll see you later?"

Bruce managed a weak smile. "I can't wait to hear about it, afterward. Um, tell the kids I said...thanks."

Tony nodded and left, looking undeniably disappointed. Bruce watched him go with a sigh. Back in February, when they'd gotten snowed in at the State Championship, Tony had warned Bruce that he wasn't usually a patient man. Since then, Tony had been unflaggingly patient with Bruce, but Bruce couldn't help but worry that his patience came with an expiration date. Part of Bruce still thought that maybe that would be for the best. But why did he think that? Even if he still didn't quite understand _why_ , Bruce no longer doubted that Tony really cared about him. Tony had really gone above and beyond for Bruce. And Claire had convinced Bruce that he was probably stable enough to date. So why shouldn’t they be together? What was Bruce so afraid of?

Bruce turned on the TV in an attempt to numb his mind. He was a few minutes into the episode and already feeling more relaxed when Thor came in.

"Bruce! Will you be attending the school board meeting tonight?"

Bruce furrowed his eyebrows. "No...are you?"

"Yes! I am going in support of Jane! Are you sure you will not attend?"

"Yes, thanks," Bruce said. "But it's nice of you to go."

"Did you already eat dinner?" Thor asked.

"It's still early, I'll make something later," Bruce said, although it occurred to him that he hadn't eaten lunch either.

"Very well." Thor made himself a smoothie and drank it quickly. He tucked a bag of almonds into his pocket and said, "Have a good night, Bruce! I will keep you updated if anything of interest happens at the school board meeting!"

"Oh...thanks. Bye!"

Thor breezed back out of the apartment, again leaving Bruce alone with the crew of the USS Enterprise. Watching them run the food replicator made him realize he was hungrier than he'd thought. He pulled out his phone and was scrolling through a Thai delivery menu--he'd fallen badly off of his meal prep bandwagon--when Tony texted him. No words, just a heart emoji and a picture of all of their academic decathlon kids, smiling and giving a thumbs up to the camera.

Bruce sighed and tried to think of what words or emojis could fully convey how much he missed his students, but he came up dry. He stared at the time at the top of the screen. It was almost 7 now. If he rode his bike to the school, he'd be late. But maybe that was fine, actually. He could slip in the back, just see how things were going, and if it was too much for him, he could just as easily slip back out and no one would be the wiser. He was just wearing jeans and an old Columbia T-shirt, but he decided not to waste time changing. Probably no one would see him anyway. The worst case scenario was that he'd have a panic attack and everyone would look at him, but he decided that was worth the risk of getting to see his students...and Tony.

Instead of replying to Tony’s text, he put on his helmet, tucked up the cuffs of his pants, and headed out to Infinite Horizons Academy, carefully counting his breaths as he pedaled. He locked up his bike and made his way to the auditorium. He stood outside in the hallway for a long moment before opening the door. Just being back inside the school was stressing him out, but he finally took a deep breath and pulled the door open a crack. The auditorium was more crowded than he'd expected for a school board meeting, nearly full, but he was able to take a seat in the very back. No one paid any attention to him, which was just what he'd wanted. 

He gathered that attendees were reading their statements in alphabetical order, which fortunately meant that Bruce had missed the awkwardness of hearing his own words read aloud. Instead, he listened to Ned, nervous but clear, talk about how hard it had been to have to change schools in the middle of junior year, how crowded the classrooms were and how difficult the commute was. How academic decathlon had been the semester's only saving grace, how he hadn't realized how much strain it was putting on Dr. Banner… 

Bruce kept counting his breaths and dug his fingernails into his palms, grounding himself as he listened. A lot of people spoke--not only his students, but other parents, teachers, all furious about the school closures for all kinds of reasons. And, though Bruce braced himself, no one spoke ill of him. Those who mentioned Bruce specifically only talked about his dedication, his overwork. Many of the speakers didn't mention him at all, instead voicing opinions about sports teams, tutoring hours, the externship program, overcrowding in the music room… the list went on and on, and though each person was only allotted two minutes to speak, there were a _lot_ of speakers. 

As the evening went on, Bruce felt anger begin to grow in him. But he wasn't worried. He realized it was a healthy, useful anger. He was angry at the school board for allowing this to happen, for putting himself and his students and co-workers in this terrible situation. And he was so proud of his students for rallying together, for expressing their anger in this productive manner.

He couldn't wait to tell Claire about this.

And then Tony walked up to the microphone, and said, "Hi...you already know who I am. But you might not know that I started working with the Midtown School of Science and Technology academic decathlon team in the fall, as a volunteer coach. And in the winter, that school merged with IHA, and I became co-coach--assistant coach, really, to Dr. Bruce Banner, who was coach of IHA's team, in addition to being a physics teacher. And I agree with everything that's been said tonight, about all the difficulties that overcrowding this school has caused, and I saw that happen firsthand to Br--Dr. Banner. I have run a Fortune 500 company for years, and I've _never_ seen anyone work harder than Dr. Banner. Honestly, if I asked any of my employees to work as hard as he does, I think I'd be sued. Those kids were truly lucky to have him, and I was even luckier to get to work with him. He gave so much to this school, to the community, and shame on them for asking so much of him, of all the teachers. He was working 20 hours a day and it still wasn't enough to meet the demands placed upon him, but he kept trying because he didn't want to give any of his students any less than the best, and he kept giving until he didn't have anything left at all. And that's not an acceptable way to treat an employee! To treat a person! You _must_ do better for our teachers, and...oh, is that my time?" He pointed up at the school board, who were sitting impassively on the stage, along with the mayor and a handful of state representatives. "Fix this!"

Bruce didn't remember making a conscious decision to get out of his seat, but somehow there he was, running up the aisle of the auditorium to where Tony stood at the microphone. He realized that out of all his many fears, his biggest one would be losing this beautiful, brilliant, passionate man. Tony turned to look at him, a smile growing on his handsome face. Bruce threw his arms around Tony's neck and kissed him. 

At first Bruce was only aware of Tony's mouth against his, soft and eager and _right_. Then Bruce grew dimly aware of scattered applause in the audience. He heard some hushed murmurs, and then he heard Darcy, loud and unmistakably smug, yell, " _Inappropriate!_ " He felt his pulse pound in his ears and he took a step back from Tony.

Bruce looked up at Jane, who was on stage moderating the event and covering her face with her hand. He mouthed " _Sorry_ " to Jane, who gave him a discreet thumbs up with her other hand.

Tony shook his head and beamed, apparently unbothered by the crowd's attention. "You are _so cute_ when you blush," he said. Ducking his head shyly, Bruce took Tony's hand and pulled him back down the aisle, out the back door of the auditorium, which meant they missed Stephen Strange's undoubtedly intriguing speech.

In the quiet, well-lit hallway, Bruce laughed dizzily. "I...I can't believe I did that."

"I can't believe you did either, to be honest. Could you do it again?"

Bruce slipped off his glasses and kissed Tony again--more deliberately, this time, but still urgent, pressed up against a row of lockers like a teenager. He couldn't believe he'd waited so long to kiss Tony; he couldn't believe he was kissing Tony; he wanted to kiss Tony forever.

And then his stomach growled loudly. Tony broke off the kiss and laughed gently. "Bruce, by any chance, did you remember to eat today?"

"I...I was going to but then I decided to come here instead."

"You know...you said you would tell me when you were ready to let me take you to dinner. Am I correct in interpreting your subtle nonverbal signals?" Tony asked drily. "Could I take you to dinner? As a date?"

Bruce laughed and put a hand on his stomach. "I guess you'd better."

"I'm sure the kids can fill us in on how the meeting ends," Tony said.

Tony took them somewhere horribly fancy, but private--the maitre'd took one look at Tony and immediately bypassed the waitlist to escort them to a cozy, dimly-lit booth. Tony squeezed in next to Bruce on the same side of the table, where they enjoyed a moment of quiet, unbothered by anything after Bruce shut his growling stomach up with a couple of warm, flaky dinner rolls. 

"I think I'm underdressed," Bruce said, casting a longing sideways glance at Tony's elegant suit.

"Whatever you want to wear at this restaurant is fine, they only care if you can pay for the food. Which we can. So don't worry about it."

Bruce bit his lip and nodded, although "not worrying about things" wasn't one of his strongest skills.

Tony took another look at Bruce and his gaze softened. He shrugged off his blazer and draped it over Bruce's shoulders.

"Oh--thanks, Tony, but--"

"Shh, if it'll make you feel better, I want you to wear it."

Bruce slid the blazer on over his arms. It must have been custom-tailored, but it fit Bruce well. It was warm and smelled like Tony's cologne, and it made Bruce feel better immediately. "Thanks."

"It looks good on you. But I think it'll look better when you take it off," Tony said, his tone lascivious. He brushed a hand over Bruce's cheek. "Seriously, you are just _so_ cute when you blush, I can't."

Bruce shyly put a hand on Tony's knee. Then he laughed as Tony's thigh began to vibrate. "I think you're getting a call. Or you're really happy to see me?"

"It's both." Tony pulled out his phone. "Or, well, texts. A lot of texts. Jesus Christ, why did I give my phone number to so many teenagers?"

"Rookie mistake," Bruce said knowingly. "If you set up a Remind account, you can send them messages but they can't see your number to reply."

"Well, I kind of needed them to be able to talk to me to coordinate for the petition and all, just...not quite this much...anyway, I guess the meeting's over."

Bruce bent forward, trying to look at Tony's phone too. Tony casually slipped an arm around him, pulling him closer to Tony and making it easier for Bruce to see the screen as he scrolled through all the excited, emoji-laden (and, Bruce must say, inappropriate) congratulations from the kids. Bruce covered his face with his hand and laughed. "Oh my god."

"I think they could probably raze that school to the ground now and those kids would still be happy after your performance," Tony said smugly.

"I didn't even...I wasn't thinking, I just...thank you, Tony."

Tony kissed his cheek. "The pleasure was mine."

Then a waiter arrived with their food, and Bruce awkwardly disentangled himself from Tony to eat. Bruce took extreme care not to spill any sauce on Tony's blazer, which undoubtedly cost more money than Bruce had ever spent on clothes. After a few cautious bites of pasta, he asked, "Oh, hey, did the kids say anything about how the meeting went? Aside from, um, us?" He felt a small thrill at saying " _us_ " and knowing what it meant.

"Apparently everything went well, except Stephen is kind of mad about being upstaged, but he'll get over it. And the school board needs some time to deliberate." Tony shrugged. "They'll send out an announcement to the school listserv. I'm sure it'll make local news too." 

"Oh. That makes sense." Bruce took another bite. "I still can't believe you did all that work for the schools…I know how busy you are."

"It was mostly MJ," Tony said. "She was the mastermind behind all this. But I like to think I lent the whole endeavor an air of dignity and professionalism."

"I'm sure you did." Bruce's heart swelled at the thought of Tony working with MJ on this civic engagement project. Taking directions from a teenager--even one as smart as MJ--couldn't have been an easy pill for a genius CEO to swallow, but he'd apparently done it.

"Plus I made a few phone calls to some reporters I happen to know. Public opinion is definitely going to be in our favor."

"Seriously, Tony, it means a lot to me."

"Well, you mean a lot to me," Tony said matter-of-factly.

Bruce had no idea how to respond to that, so he took another bite of pasta. It was still so hard to believe that Tony had seen Bruce at his absolute worst and still felt that way about him...and yet here they were. Bruce snuck a sideways glance at Tony and saw a sweet, affectionate look on Tony's face. For Bruce. Bruce smiled back and reminded himself of Occam's Razor--no matter how improbable, the simplest explanation for all of this was that Tony actually did care about Bruce. Bruce made a conscious attempt to try to stop overthinking and believe this explanation.

He managed to eat his whole plate without spilling on Tony's blazer, and he sighed with relief. Tony eyed Bruce's empty plate and asked, "Did you get enough to eat?"

"Oh, yeah, thanks." Bruce noticed that Tony’s plate was still half-full. "I, um, I guess I was pretty hungry."

"Was it good? I--I read that this place has good vegetarian options."

Bruce assured him, "It was great. How was yours?"

"The food was fine, but not as good as the company." Bruce laughed and shook his head. Tony could be so over the top; it was a trait that had initially made it hard for Bruce to be sure of Tony’s sincerity, but now it was just funny. Tony added, "You want dessert?"

"Oh, no thanks."

"Hmm. If I get dessert, will you have any?"

"Sure." Bruce didn’t usually order dessert at restaurants, but tonight was clearly a special occasion. 

Tony surveyed the dessert menu and asked, "Do you like creme brûlée?"

"Probably," Bruce said with a shrug. 

"Probably?"

"I--I've never had it, but I'm not really a picky eater. Vegetarianism aside." Bruce felt a little self-conscious; he was pretty well-traveled, no longer the Midwestern rube he’d been when he’d arrived in New York as an awkward young scholarship student, but he knew he wasn’t as worldly as Tony.

"Ah! Then we're definitely getting that," Tony declared. Bruce watched as their server brought out a little ramekin of custard and then took a blowtorch to it, right at the table. "That's how you know it's good," Tony said. "When they do the blowtorch part back in the kitchen, what’s even the point?" He took a spoon and cracked it over the top of the sugary crust. Then he scooped up a spoonful of creme brûlée and held it up to Bruce's mouth.

Bruce laughed nervously but he leaned in to accept the bite. "Oh my _god_ ," he mumbled with his mouth full. It was so good he forgot to worry about Tony's blazer.

Looking unbelievably pleased with himself, Tony said, "Good, right?" and took his own bite. Bruce looked into Tony’s eyes as he offered Bruce another spoonful and he suddenly realized that Tony wasn’t judging Bruce for never having had creme brûlée before; Tony was just delighted to share it with Bruce. The thought was almost as sweet as the dessert itself.

Between the two of them, they made quick work of the delicious dessert. Back in Tony's car after their unfathomably expensive dinner, Tony gave him a burnt sugar kiss and asked, "Well...should I drop you off at your place, or would you like to come up to mine for a nightcap? Uh, you know, an herbal tea kind of nightcap."

Bruce smiled shyly. "Your place sounds good."

Tony's answering smile wasn't shy at all. "I do have to warn you, though...my room only has one bed. And you have to be in it by 11."

"We'd better get going, then," Bruce replied, desire racing through every one of his nerve endings.

Tony's bed turned out to be _much_ nicer than the one they'd shared in Albany, and they had a lot more fun sharing it. Later that night, Bruce fell asleep in Tony's arms, feeling secure and ready to face whatever dumb decision the school board might make.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for hanging in there with the slow burn! Hope it was worth the wait :-*


	8. Truly Madly Deeply

Tony pulled open the door to the Asgard. He took off his sunglasses and squinted into the dim light of the pub. As his eyes adjusted, he looked around until he saw Bruce giving him a tentative wave and a small smile, a smile that widened once Tony made eye contact and waved back. Tony slid into the booth next to Bruce and gave him a quick kiss.

"Sorry I'm late," he said.

Bruce shook his head. "No, you're fine, Thor just likes to get here early, I guess?"

"Hello, Tony!" Thor said. He waved a hand out at the table and said, "Many of the tables at this fine establishment are not large enough to comfortably accommodate my friends and I! We must get here early to get one that is adequate for all of us."

"This one looks more than big enough for the four of us," Tony said, nodding at Jane.

"We can have six team members! Two more are coming!" Thor said. Sure enough, shortly thereafter two men walked into the Asgard and approached their table. One was very tall, the other very short, but both were extremely muscular. Their arms all looked like Tony's thighs. Maybe Tony should try CrossFit. 

Thor announced, "Ah! Korg, Miek, meet Bruce and Tony. Bruce is my very intelligent roommate, and Tony is…"

"Tony Stark! We know who Tony Stark is," the taller man--apparently Korg, if Tony had heard right--said, with a voice that was incongruously mellow for his size. He offered handshakes. "Bruce, so glad you could finally join us. We were starting to think maybe Thor didn't really have a roommate and you were just some kind of delusion of his! Ha ha!"

Miek agreed, "Yes! Every week Thor would say, 'We have to save a space for my roommate, Bruce!' And every week we would say, 'Sure, Thor!'" Korg and Miek both dissolved into giggles at Miek's impression. 

Bruce winced. "Sorry...I, uh, can be kind of a homebody sometimes."

"Sometimes! For several months!" Thor agreed. "But you're here now! Korg is my CrossFit instructor and Miek is one of my classmates."

"Wait, Thor, _you're_ not the instructor?" Tony asked. "I thought that was your job."

Thor laughed merrily. "No, of course not. It is merely a hobby, perhaps a lifestyle. I work for the United Nations. Bruce, you did not tell him of my important work for the United Nations?"

"Sorry, it, uh, didn't come up," Bruce said. He smiled apologetically. 

The trivia hostess came around and gave them their score sheets. "Ah, it looks like the Revengers have gotten a few new players!" she said cheerfully. 

"Yes!" Thor enthused. He pointed to Bruce and Tony in turn and said, "My roommate Bruce is here. And his date!"

Tony waved. The hostess glanced at him, and then at Bruce. "Oh! The famous Bruce is here!"

"Hi," Bruce said, with an awkward wave. He was _so_ cute. Tony felt a sudden burst of insecurity, looking from Bruce's cute face to Bruce's very hot, very strong friends across the table who were apparently also smarter than they looked. Then Bruce put an arm around Tony's shoulders. "He's actually the famous one," Bruce said.

"Not to hear Thor tell it! Anyway, good luck, not that I think you'll need it," the hostess said with a wink. Sometimes Tony really loved New Yorkers; everyone at this bar was more excited to see their regular customer's reclusive roommate than they were to see Tony, who was, as Bruce had said, actually famous. Tony didn't mind public attention, but a little peace was also appreciated from time to time. Especially peace shared with Bruce.

Bruce leaned on Tony's shoulder and said, softly, "Hey, I'm really glad you could make it tonight."

"I mean, how could I pass up on the opportunity to show a cute guy how smart I am?" Tony said.

Before long, the hostess read the rules and announced that the first question would be in the category of Sports. Tony fought a grimace; he was extremely competitive but also fairly ignorant of sports.

Fortunately, Thor and his extremely buff friends seemed familiar with the rules of lacrosse, and they got full points for their answer. (Apparently, a proper men's lacrosse team featured three "attackmen," which seemed a little on the nose.)

Tony felt on surer ground when the next question was in the category of Science, but Bruce took the pencil from Thor's hand and wrote "hydrogen" on their answer sheet before Tony could. Then Bruce smiled and glanced at up Tony. "Right?" he asked.

"Right," Tony confirmed. He reminded himself that this was supposed to be fun. And, as the night went on and the questions got more challenging, he _did_ have fun. He even had fun when the rest of their team started to get pretty tipsy, but Tony stayed sober in solidarity with Bruce.

Bruce leaned in close and said, "It's okay if you want to have a drink, you know. We are at _pub_ trivia."

Tony smiled and tapped his forehead. "Nah. I want to stay sharp. Apparently we have a trivia title to uphold."

Bruce smiled back and gave Tony a spicy-sweet, ginger ale-flavored kiss. Tony would gladly trade dozens of cocktails for more of those kisses. Besides, now that he'd quit doing all the parts of his job he hated, he didn't find himself drawn to drink nearly as often. Plus, if he were drunk, he didn't think he would have been able to pull the 1991 Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner out of his memory. (Richard R. Ernst, for his contributions to the development of the methodology of high resolution nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy.)

By halftime, Tony had successfully wrested main control of the trivia pencil from Thor.

By the end of the night, the Revengers were the clear winners of trivia, and Thor accepted their $25 gift certificate with pride. He then immediately put it toward their tab and ordered another pitcher of beer for the table.

Tony asked, "Hey, Thor, why is your team called the Revengers, anyway?"

Thor's eyes lit up and he said, "Oh! It's quite a funny story, actually! You see, when my brother and I were children, he--well, you don't need to hear that part, but then in high school--no, it must have been when we were in college, we--ah, well, the joke is funnier in Norwegian."

"I...see," Tony said, as Thor finished off another beer.

"I still haven't quite figured it out either," Jane said with a shrug. "It does seem to strike fear into the hearts of our opponents, though." Thor smiled and refilled Jane's glass. She giggled and drank more.

Tony turned back to Bruce, who was politely listening to Korg speak about his involvement with the Democratic Socialists of America. Fortunately, Korg was pretty drunk and was easily redirected when Tony asked him for some workout tips.

Bruce raised his eyebrows at Tony, a bemused expression on his face while Korg went into great detail. Tony said, "Hmm, really, _how_ many reps?"

Kindly, Korg said, "Well, you should probably start with 5 or 10 and work your way up."

Bruce smiled at Tony and stroked his bicep. "I don't know, I bet you could do at least 15."

Korg gave an ambivalent sideways nod. 

Jane leaned over and said, "Oh! Bruce, did you get my email?"

A guilty expression flickered across Bruce's face. "Oh, um, no? I haven't checked it today?"

"You're such a liar, Bruce, you have email on your phone, _everyone_ has email on their phone and everyone checks it constantly," Jane said. "Even the students do and they're not _allowed_." She had a definite drunken fervor to her voice.

"Okay, well...I _saw_ that you emailed me, but I didn't read it?"

" _Well_ , I'm sure you already heard that the mayor appointed a new schools chancellor, you know, that redhead from Midtown? She's amazing, so forceful. Anyway, all the schools are reopening, soo the Midtown students are going back to Midtown, thank god, but the student council voted to have a joint prom for the two schools, because the students all got really close, like, maybe too close? _You know_ what I mean." She giggled.

Thor laughed. "Jane! You're quite drunk, aren't you?"

"If I am! It's your fault! And it's Bruce's fault for not reading his email!" 

"I will read my email, I promise."

"You have to read it _and reply_ to it!" she insisted.

"I'll read it! I'll read it right now." Bruce pulled out his phone. Tony peered over his shoulder and raised his eyebrows.

"Oh my god, you have _so many_ unread emails!" exclaimed Tony, whose inbox had been carefully groomed by Pepper (ugh, he really needed to hire a new assistant soon, but how was he supposed to replace Pepper?) and specialized filters. He felt retroactively flattered that Bruce generally read Tony's emails, except for when he'd been at the worst of his depression.

Bruce looked up from his phone and said, "You want me to be a chaperone at prom?"

"Ah! You read your email!" Jane said triumphantly. "So, will you?"

"I'll have to check my calendar."

"Bruce! You never have any social activities planned!" Thor said.

Bruce covered his face with his hands.

"Ugh! Check your calendar! Which is also on your phone! And then reply to my email! To tell me yes! Because we need _so many_ chaperones for such a big prom! And it's this weekend!"

"I'll chaperone prom," Tony offered.

"Yes! I always liked you, Tony! And your background check is still on file!"

"Jane is such a cheerful drunk," Thor said happily.

"You two have that in common," Bruce said.

" _Thank you_!" Thor replied.

"Bruce, will you go to prom with me?" Tony asked.

"Aah! A promposal!" Jane said. "Oh, my god, you guys are so adorable! I'm so glad you finally got together!"

Bruce sighed and rubbed his forehead with his hand. Tony kissed his cheek. 

"Okay, yes, I suppose I can help chaperone prom," Bruce said.

"With me!" Tony said.

"With you," Bruce agreed, sounding slightly more cheered by that prospect.

"Yay!" Jane said.

Thor said, "I suppose we had better get going, hadn't we?"

"Yes, 5 AM will be here before we know it!" Korg said. "The focus for tomorrow's workout of the day is pull-ups! Tony, you should join us!"

"Oh...I'll be busy then," Tony said. He snaked a hand up under the back of Bruce's plaid button-down shirt, watching Bruce squirm as Tony lightly ran his fingers up his spine. "Super busy."

"We have classes to accommodate any schedule," Korg said. "Here's my card!"

Tony took it with his other hand. "Thank you for this. I will treasure it always."

"Well, we'd better get going too," Bruce said. Tony smirked; he was pretty sure he was the only one who noticed the slight hitch in Bruce's voice. It was too dimly lit in the Asgard to see if Bruce was blushing, but Tony had a suspicion, especially as he dipped his hand further down Bruce's spine.

Tony quietly paid the rest of the group's tab and the group left the Asgard. Before they parted ways, Thor asked, "Will you join the Revengers again next week?"

"I'll have to--" Bruce started to say.

Tony cut him off. "Yes!" 

"Excellent!" Thor eyed Bruce and Tony, and said, "Bruce, I shan't wait up for you!"

"Um, yeah, thanks," Bruce mumbled. "I'll see you later."

In Tony's car, Bruce said, "Uh, you know, you don't have to do any of this stuff?"

"What stuff?" 

"Pub trivia...high school prom?"

"I want to! I mean, I want to if you'll be there."

"I--well--okay," Bruce said. "It's just that I know you're really busy, and I'm sure you have better things to do…"

"Bruce, seriously, when are you going to get it through your head that there's nothing I'd rather do than spend time with you?" 

Bruce made a small, strangled sound. "It...it might take...some time. Sorry."

"Well, I'm going to make this issue my top priority."

Bruce let out a little laugh, and Tony focused on getting back to Stark Tower as fast as was safely possible. Bruce's apartment was of course much closer to the Asgard, but...the walls were thin there. Stark Tower offered a surfeit of privacy.

A second after Tony pulled into the garage, Bruce leaned in and kissed him.

"Mm," Tony said with delight. "We can really lean into this high school thing, screw around in the car, plan our prom outfits…"

Bruce groaned and pulled away. "Prom is _not_ going to be a fun, sexy time for us, you know that, right?"

"Not with that kind of attitude, it won't be."

"Seriously, Tony--"

"--I know! I know it's work. But I just thought...you might like to go back and see your old students? And me in a tux?"

Bruce smiled. "That part sounds good."

"Why don't we just hop in the backseat--a bit roomier back there--focus on the fun, sexy stuff tonight, and figure out the rest later?"

Bruce bit his lip and looked down for a moment. Then he looked up at Tony with a mischievous spark in his eyes and deliberately climbed into the backseat of Tony's Audi. Tony grinned and joined him.

He straddled Bruce’s lap and said, "You can’t do _this_ on a bicycle."

Bruce considered this and replied, "We could try? We'd just have to make sure to distribute our weight evenly."

"Mm, I love your scientific mind," Tony replied.

Then Tony gently pushed Bruce back on the seat for some activities you definitely couldn’t do on a bicycle. Things got hot quickly, even without the seat warmers.

Eventually, they made it up to bed. The luxurious leather backseat was good for a bit of fun, but Tony needed a higher thread count for sleeping. Just before Tony drifted off to sleep, Bruce sleepily murmured, "I still don't understand why you're so nice to me."

"Well, I don't understand how you're so good at pub trivia when you're so dumb," Tony replied, gently stroking Bruce's hair. He tried not to take Bruce's confusion personally. With help from Dr. Yinsen, Tony had started to understand how differently he and Bruce had been affected by their childhood scars. Bruce's self-protective instinct was to close himself off completely so that no one else could hurt him; Tony's was to seek out whatever physical comfort he could get, even if he knew it wasn't from a good source. But Bruce had begun to haltingly open up to Tony, and Tony didn't need his therapist to tell him that whatever time he invested into earning Bruce's hard-won trust was time well spent.

"I guess as long as we're both confused, that's all right," Bruce said thoughtfully. 

Tony laughed. "I guess it is." He planted a kiss on top of Bruce's head. "Go to sleep, maybe this will make sense in the morning."

"Mm...probably not."

When Tony awoke in the morning, he looked over and smiled, happy to see Bruce looking so relaxed in sleep. Gentle Bruce, who struggled so hard to forgive himself for having been pushed too far on one bad day. Kind Bruce, who didn't seem to understand how much it hurt when he shut Tony out. Brilliant Bruce, who still couldn't understand why Tony was nice to him. Shy Bruce, who had been so brave at last week’s school board meeting. Brave for Tony. Tony felt a flutter in his stomach whenever he thought about that kiss; he forced it out of his mind at the moment. He wanted to let Bruce rest as long as he could, but if he thought about that kiss much longer he'd simply have to wake Bruce up for another one.

Tony dragged his gaze away from Bruce and quietly scrolled through his phone. He skimmed the latest developments on SI's case against AIM--apparently Killian was close to settling out of court. He hadn't counted on Maya signing her sabotage so literally, and the evidence was pretty damning. A public court case would probably make both companies look bad. Tony was mostly glad that it was Pepper and Matt's problem now. She was doing great work already--SI's stock was at a 5-year high. And Tony could just focus on getting the self-driving car ready for market. They were very close to being ready to begin production--they really probably could have begun weeks ago, but Tony wanted to make sure everything was _perfect_. After his stupid accident, they absolutely could not afford to have anything go wrong with the first consumer models.

Tony had made decent progress on clearing out his inbox by the time Bruce yawned and stretched, giving Tony a sleepy, soft look. "Morning, sunshine," Tony said. He promptly leaned over to give Bruce a good morning kiss, because he could.

"Mm." Bruce rolled over and rested his head on Tony's chest, and Tony happily put an arm around him. This past year he’d spent more nights sleeping alone than any other year of his adult life--it had taken him awhile to consciously make the connection, but after he met Bruce he'd somehow lost interest in continuing his long streak of one night stands. Now, finally being with Bruce more than made up for all those lonely nights. 

"You sleep okay?"

"Great," Bruce said. "How about you?"

"What a coincidence, also great! We should really do this more often."

Bruce laughed softly. After a moment, he said, "Hey, Tony, I just...um. I'm sorry I'm so weird about...everything?"

"What do you mean? I happen to like weird."

"I just, I, um, I haven't...I don't really know...how to do this. How to be in a...a relationship? But I don't want you to...um, I really do like you, a lot, is the thing."

"That's convenient, because I really like you a lot, too."

"It's just...I don't want to mess this up."

"Mess this up? Bruce, can I tell you about how some of my other relationships have ended?"

"...Is that going to be helpful?"

"I think so, actually, yeah. For starters, _five_ of them ended because the other party sold personal details about me to the tabloids."

"What? That's horrible!" Bruce said, clearly indignant.

Tony kissed his forehead. "See? You would never do that."

"Of course not!"

"One of them stole one of my bank passwords and transferred a not-insubstantial amount of money out of my account."

Bruce laughed. "That's so stupid. You're the most generous person I've ever met, what's the point of stealing from you?"

Tony worked his way through his list of awful exes (many of whom were really more like awful one night stands), careful not to mention how many of them happened to be models, actors, or other attractive celebrities. That kind of thing didn't matter to Tony, but he sensed that it would matter to Bruce. By the time Tony wrapped up, Bruce seemed marginally more relaxed, though also angry on Tony's behalf, which was really so sweet of him. Tony concluded, "So you see? You're _such_ an upgrade for me."

"I'm so sorry," Bruce said. "You didn't deserve any of that."

"Mmm, well, some of them I kind of did." 

"No way."

Tony tightened his arm around Bruce and decided not to try too hard to convince Bruce that Tony had been kind of a mess, was in fact still kind of a mess. Bruce was smart; he'd figure it out, if he hadn't already. "So what were you worried about?"

"I...I mean, you already know I'm...I have some problems. And it's been a long time since I dated anyone. And I...I...well, I haven't really had the healthiest relationships modeled for me, so I just...don't know what I'm doing, and I don't want to...mess it up?" He lowered his voice. "To hurt you?"

"What, you think _I_ know what I'm doing? Didn't you just hear my list?"

"But you've been so patient with me! And you're always doing such nice things for me! And saying nice things, and...being so cute, and…" Bruce sighed.

"Well, so are you! Honestly, you were nice and cute _first_ , I've just been trying to catch up to you. You're the best thing that's happened to me in a long time. Definitely the best boyfriend I've ever had. Ugh, I can't believe we're having this conversation before coffee. Do you want coffee?"

Bruce laughed. "Yes, please." He rolled off of Tony's chest and sat up, grabbing his glasses off the nightstand. Tony made coffee and brought two cups back to bed, careful to hand Bruce the one with a splash of milk and no sugar rather than his own, which was the opposite. 

They sipped their coffee, and, rather than give Bruce a chance to revisit his self-loathing, Tony asked, "Hey, have you thought about if you're going to accept Jane's offer?"

"Yeah, I said I'd chaperone prom. You kind of forced my hand on that one, I couldn't let you face prom by yourself," Bruce said wryly.

"No, her other offer."

Bruce set down his coffee and crossed his arms. His face flickered shut, and Tony hoped he hadn't overstepped. Tony was used to his every move being on the public record, but Bruce was so private. "I didn't tell you about that."

"I, uh, hang out with the new Schools Chancellor and her girlfriend sometimes, I hear things. Like how you're being offered back your original job for next school year, with guaranteed class-size caps and a cost of living adjustment? It sounds like a pretty good offer."

"I...I haven't decided yet."

"Okay," Tony said.

Bruce raised his eyebrows. "You're not going to tell me that teaching is my calling and my students need me?"

Tony shrugged. "I think you already know that. Anyway, you're the one who inspired me to quit my job, so I don't think I'm in any position to give you advice on that front."

"I did? Wait, you quit your job? Is everything okay?" 

"Thanks to you and my new therapist, yeah, everything's more than okay." Bruce looked at him expectantly, and Tony continued, "When we talked at the SI holiday party, I saw how much you loved your job, even though it wasn't the most prestigious title, and...I realized that I felt the opposite, and, well, here we are."

Bruce smiled at him. "Here we are. So what will you do now? I'm sorry, I've been kind of checked out..."

Tony smiled back and reached for his wallet. He handed Bruce a business card, one with his new title: Futurist. Bruce ran his finger over it and set it on his nightstand.

"Congratulations, Tony. That sounds great."

Tony said, "Hey, if you decide not to go back to teaching, you could always work for the Stark Foundation, you know. We’re starting a big new project focusing on closing the achievement gap in New York Public Schools, you’d be a huge asset."

"Hmm. That’s something to think about. And it’s great that you’re doing it."

"Honestly, we should have started it sooner, if the government wasn't going to. But anyway, let's talk about something important: what color boutonniere do you want for prom?"

Bruce laughed and let Tony coax him into making plans for chaperoning prom. In addition to wanting to dance with Bruce in a tux, Tony was sure that Bruce would be reminded of how much he loved his students and rejoin the career he was so obviously called to. But he knew how much it sucked to have that kind of pressure put on you, so he said nothing else about it until prom night.

He picked Bruce up at his apartment and pinned a purple rose to his lapel; Bruce laughed shyly and produced a red rose from the fridge. Thor made them pose for pictures in the living room. Tony could tell that Bruce found it embarrassing, but Tony liked Bruce's slightly dazed smile. He promptly set one of the photos as the home screen on his phone, and then they were off to dinner.

"You know, this will be my first time going to prom," Tony confided.

"Really?" Bruce asked.

"I went to a French boarding school, I'm not even sure if they had a prom. I mean, there were formal events, but...well, it was a whole different thing. Plus, I was really young when I graduated." 

"I graduated high school young, too. Mine definitely did have a prom, that I also definitely did not attend," Bruce said, a rueful smile on his lips. "But I've chaperoned a few others, for my last schools. It's...kind of exhausting. But it is sweet to see the kids all dressed up. You can tell they feel so grown up but they just look like dolls."

Tony reached across the table to squeeze Bruce's hand. "I'm glad to be going with you."

After dinner, they made their way to the hotel ballroom that had been rented for the IHA/Midtown prom. The room had been decorated with twinkling lights and shiny stars, to encapsulate the nebulous theme of "Starry Night."

Bruce reached up and touched a cardboard foil star. He muttered, "If this is the theme they wanted, they should have had it outdoors. Apparently last year's theme was 'A Night to Remember,' which at least makes sense on a literal level."

Tony laughed. "You're such a romantic, that's what I love about you."

Bruce looked at him in surprise---despite their casual use of heart emojis, it was the first time either of them had said the word "love" to each other in any capacity, and Tony was briefly afraid that Bruce would get weird and shy about it. But after a split second, Bruce smiled and said, "I love that you came to high school prom with me."

Before either of them could say anything else, Jane, wearing a galaxy-print dress and a frazzled expression, ran up to them with a clipboard. "Oh, good, you're here. Let's see, kids should start getting here in about fifteen minutes...can you two just circulate on the dance floor and make sure nobody's doing anything inappropriate?"

"I think we can handle that," Bruce said.

"I mean, I'll try to keep my eyes on Bruce, but you know how he is," Tony said.

Bruce rolled his eyes and elbowed Tony, but Jane laughed. "Thank you, I appreciate it!"

Tony brought Bruce a cup of punch, successfully resisting the impulse to make a joke about spiking it. Bruce raised his cup in a toast, and they clinked their cheap plastic cups together. Before long, the DJ started playing songs Tony didn't recognize--oh no, was Tony actually old? No, this DJ was probably just bad--and the dance floor started filling with kids looking adorably awkward in all their finery. 

The academic decathlon team arrived in one big blob, and they swarmed around Bruce and Tony. They all looked freshly scrubbed and polished. Stephen appeared to have acquired a new, more formal cloak for the occasion.

"It's ironic that you two are here to chaperone _us_ , when you clearly can't be counted on to model appropriate behavior in public," Darcy said with mock severity.

"It's good to see you too, Darcy," Bruce said mildly. "Are you all having fun at prom?"

"It's odd that the theme is Starry Night and yet it is held indoors," Shuri said.

" _Right_?" Bruce asked. Tony laughed.

"Still, it is a lovely American custom, and I am happy to partake," Shuri added. "It's like in the movies."

"Dr. Banner, does this mean you're coming back to IHA next year?" Gamora asked.

"Our father has been fired, as I'm sure you heard," Nebula added.

"Please come back," Wong said.

"I…" Bruce bit his lip. "Yeah, I think I will be."

Tony couldn't keep a smile off his face, and the kids erupted into excited murmurs.

"It kinda sucks that we'll have to be on opposite teams next year, though," Ned said.

"Yeah, it'll be hard to beat you, but I'm sure we'll get over it," Gamora said.

"No way, you're going down!" Flash said.

Peter looked at Tony. "You're not coming back to Midtown next year, are you, Mr. Stark?"

"I...no, I don't think so, Peter. You guys deserve a real coach, someone who knows what they're doing. But I'll come cheer you on."

Peter smiled. "That sounds good."

"Plus, I'm starting this new internship program, you should definitely apply."

Peter's smile widened. "I definitely will! Thanks, Mr. Stark!"

"Typical, white men helping other white men succeed," MJ said.

"There are multiple spots available, MJ, you should apply too."

"Yeah right, like I want to work for your capitalist empire," she said with an expressive eye roll.

"The Stark Foundation also offers internships for its sustainable development efforts…" he offered.

"Okay, maybe I'll look into that, if my trip to Wakanda falls through," MJ said.

"It won't," Shuri said serenely.

Bruce masked a laugh with his hand and then cleared his throat. "Anyway, it's great to see you all, but you should definitely stop talking to us old folks and go have fun. You know, enjoy this archaic patriarchal tradition while you can."

MJ offered Bruce a fist bump, and Tony insisted, "We're not old!"

The kids laughed and dispersed to the dance floor. Tony and Bruce awkwardly circulated. It occurred to Tony that he had no idea what even constituted inappropriate behavior at prom, and he decided to just watch Bruce. Everywhere Bruce went, students lit up and welcomed him back. Tony didn't know most of them; he assumed they were just students from Bruce's physics classes who hadn't gone out for the illustrious academic decathlon team. Occasionally, students did double-takes at seeing Tony Stark at their prom, but most of them were too wrapped up in each other to even care about having a celebrity in their midst.

Then Peter and Ned came up to Tony and held out a cup of punch. "Thanks, but I already had some," Tony said.

"No! We saw some senior guy put something in this, we think he was going to give it to a girl!" Peter said.

"Like roofies," Ned whispered loudly.

"What? That's fucked up," Tony said. He looked around for Bruce or some other responsible adult to handle this. Then he remembered, "Ooh, wait, I made some of those cards that can test drinks for date rape drugs!" He'd put several out by the punch, but now he pulled one out of his wallet and tested the drink. "Well, nothing happened, so it could be that he used something more obscure that this card doesn't test for…" He held up the clear plastic cup and said, "Or it could be that these are Skittles?"

"What?" Ned took the cup back. "Oh. Yeah, those are definitely Skittles. Ooh, it is cool when you put Skittles in soda and the color melts off. But not as fun as putting Pop Rocks in soda."

"Oops, they _are_ Skittles. Sorry, Mr. Stark! Our bad!" Peter said with a wide-eyed grimace.

"It's okay, kid...good keeping an eye out, I guess. And, uh, good that your classmates don't have roofies."

"Should we go give that guy back his drink?" Peter asked.

"Um, no, I touched it, throw it away," Tony said. "There's plenty of punch, and I'm sure he has more Skittles…"

Peter and Ned went off to dispose of their un-drugged drink, and Tony continued making a circuit around the dance floor. He spotted Bruce just as the DJ started playing a slow 90s jam that reminded Tony of his own brief high school career. He walked up to Bruce and asked, "Could I have this dance?"

Bruce flashed an adorable smile and put his arms around Tony. 

"So, I heard you say you were going back to IHA next year?" Tony asked, trying not to sound too smug.

"Don't think I don't know that you and Jane were scheming, you _knew_ I'd come to prom and feel all warm and fuzzy and decide to stop moping around my apartment and sign a contract for another year at a job I love," Bruce said, with mock anger.

"Nothing wrong with a little scheme if it works," Tony replied cheerfully.

Bruce leaned in and gave him a quick, chaste kiss. "Seriously, thanks for being here with me, and for everything...I...I love you, Tony."

Tony sucked in a delighted breath, feeling a burst of butterflies in his stomach. He felt like a teenager again, but happier than he'd ever actually been in high school. He felt like every word of the stupid love song that was playing. "I love you too. But I can't believe we're having this moment to _this_ song."

Bruce laughed. "Do you want me to take it back and try again when the DJ is playing something cooler?"

"No! No take-backsies," Tony insisted. "But yeah, do tell me it again when something cooler is playing. You know what, just, often, feel free to tell me often, maybe during every song?"

"I think I can handle that." Bruce was looking at him with a tender smile that Tony was pretty sure his own face was mirroring.

"Perfect. Hey, so you still get the summers off, right?"

"Yeah, I mean, I'll have to do some prep work and go back a little bit before the students to get everything set up, but mostly, yeah."

"Great, because, I've been thinking, since I have some more free time now, I should really go to South America and see first-hand what the Stark Foundation is doing down there...but I could use a translator. A guide. I thought you might be interested, if you happen to be available?"

Bruce's face lit up like a starry night. "Me encantaría viajar contigo."

"Ooh, I was not prepared for how sexy it is when you speak Spanish! But just to be clear, that was a 'sí', right?"

"Yes. I'd love to."

"Excellent. We can start making arrangements soon. But not tonight, I'm busy tonight."

"Mm-hmm, me too." Bruce leaned his head against Tony's shoulder as they swayed to the cheesy song. 

Jane came around and whispered loudly, "You two are the worst chaperones!"

"Bruce said he'd teach again next year," Tony said.

"Oh, thank god. Fine, you can finish up this dance, but then you have to stop gazing at each other and go chaperone!"

"Sorry, Dr. Foster," Bruce said contritely. "He's a bad influence."

She laughed. "He finished his community service, I think he's rehabilitated now." Jane moved on to break up a couple who were incongruously grinding to the slow song.

Tony focused on holding Bruce tight and imagining the moment when he could peel Bruce's tux off of him. He let his hands slip down below Bruce's waist, leaned in close to Bruce's ear and whispered, "God, all that biking you do really has given you the most amazing ass. I think I'm actually hornier now than I was when I was a teenager."

Bruce laughed and whispered, " _Inappropriate!_ " But he didn't sound upset about it at all.

At the end of the night, after all the kids left, they helped take down decorations, mostly because Bruce automatically started helping and Tony wasn't about to leave without him. When the ballroom was clean, Jane took a handful of condoms out of the bowl provided by the After-Prom Committee. She pressed them into Bruce's hand and said, "Be safe, have fun, and get me a signed contract by next week!" 

"I think this is technically workplace sexual harassment," Bruce said, tucking the condoms into his pocket.

"Technically, I'm not your boss right now," Jane replied. "I'm just giving you some good advice!" 

Bruce shook his head and rolled his eyes. "Good night, Jane."

Tony put his arm around Bruce. "You really are so cute when you blush," he whispered, and then they made their way out into the actual starry night, back to Stark Tower for a night to remember.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I intentionally didn't name the song Bruce and Tony dance to so that you can feel free to imagine your own fav 90s slow jam, but if you'd like a suggestion I'll point you to the chapter title, ["Truly Madly Deeply" by Savage Garden](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQnAxOQxQIU). (All the other chapter titles are 90s songs too, because surprise! I've been your terrible prom DJ this whole time! Behind the scenes fact: every single one of Bruce's chapters was almost entitled "Basket Case" but every time I decided it was just too on the nose, sorry Green Day.)
> 
> Anyway, go be safe and have fun on prom night! Bye and thanks for reading! ♥
> 
> PS: I know teachers don’t usually dress up so much for prom, but Tony really wanted to and neither Bruce nor I wanted to tell him any different ;)


End file.
